Rogue Mantis
by Koth Ultimati
Summary: The Flock are in deep trouble, Itex have trained an elite team to hunt them down. So what happens when they fail and blame it on the Flock? The team want vengeance and they'll do whatever it takes to get it. Max x OC. T for violence and fluff.
1. You Can't Fly Forever

**A/N This is my first story, a lot of O/C POV and possibly a fair amount of fighting later. If the major O/C talks like an idiot, please say, I need to develop his character more and any input is good. If the story ends up rambling I honestly just based this whole story off a single idea. If anyone flames me for any reason, please don't, I have better things to do with my life. Oh and the story is post-Fang, Angel doesn't happen and the recombinants weren't exterminated. **

**Disclaimer - I don't own Maximum Ride. If I did then I wouldn't be writing Fanfics, I only own the O/Cs **

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><p><span>Rogue Mantis<span>

Chapter one

Experiment 234's POV:

My team was ready; we had the mistakes within striking distance. Our instructions rang clearly through my head "kill the flock, no excuses or exceptions". We had trained from the day we were born to kill them, today Maximum Ride would die and the world would be saved all because of me and my team. I shook the predictions of pride from my head and focused on the mistakes again. There they were, relaxing on the beach. We would soon teach them the price of their relaxation. I tensed as Experiment 286 gave the signal to move in, I unsheathed my blades and jumped off the cliff I was watching them from and plummeted towards the happy little group. Today, the world would be safe because Maximum Ride was going to die.

Max's POV:

We were just chilling on the beach; Angel was busy making some new fish friends, Gazzy was skipping stones with Iggy, Nudge was talking non-stop about clothes or something whilst Dylan, my "perfect other half" was just sitting there watching me. Creep. It had been a few weeks since Fang had left and I still missed him, but I'd settled into a nice routine when oh so typically our peace was interrupted by dive-bombing weirdos. They just threw themselves off the cliff like a bunch of lemmings, heavily armed lemmings with parachutes. The flock were up and tensed for a fight before the parachutists had hit the ground. One sliced his parachute off and stalked forwards towards me, yes sliced. He was covered in knives and generally sharp things. He stood poker straight and addressed me "Maximum Ride, I am Experiment 234, by the orders of Itex you are hereby sentenced to death do you accept and comply?" This guy had to be joking with me, comply what kind of idiot complies with their execution. "Maximum Ride, do you comply? My team and I are more than capable of subduing and executing you and your compatriots." Now I knew this guy was joking.

"Do I comply? You seriously think I want to get killed? No freaking way, and you think you guys can beat me and the flock? What are you 50% pen knife?"

"Your rhetorical questions are meaningless, in response to your final question I am not 50% pen knife and I have been enhanced with 2% mantis DNA does that answer your question? Do you comply?" Knife dude responded, great, bug squishing time.

"Yes it answers my question and no, I don't freaking comply. Why haven't you guys even attacked us yet?"

"Unsatisfactory answer, prepare to be subdued and executed." Oh goody, just as I was getting settled and we attacked by a knife wielding psycho from the School. And typically I noticed his team arranged in a neat line behind him, five plus knife dude, one for each of us.

Experiment 234's POV

The stubborn girl did not comply, as expected. A flick of my wrist gave the signal to attack, and the team moved in with immaculate timing.

Max's POV

Knife guy flicked his wrist and his team leaped forward, the flock meeting them in a clash of fists and weapons. Knife dude went straight for me, typical idiots, always go for the member of the group who's most likely to bust your face. After that I just went on instinct, unlike most fights we'd been in, this was one-on-one, but was hardly even. Things started to go wrong from the first punch thrown. I launched a spinning back kick at knife guy but he wasn't there, he'd moved so ridiculously fast he'd seemed to teleport, which he might have done. He countered by spinning and cutting through the air like a demented top, a demented top that I couldn't hit without getting ripped to shreds. Something I hadn't put on my "to-do list". I glanced around to see the flock in a variety of conditions, Nudge had taken to the air and was kicking at the face of one guy, but her foot just passed through his head as he floated up and landed a very solid punch in her gut.

I was distracted by knife dude slashing at my face which I didn't dodge fast enough, pain seared through my face as one of his knives cut across my cheek. But I smashed at his face with my elbow, a decision I regretted immediately since I hit the flat of another of his knives, how many of those things does this guy have? Iggy and the Gasman were throwing every bomb they had, but the pair they were facing just dodged, one diving aside the other spinning into the air with freakish precision and clubbed Iggy with a cane, what kind of person carries a freaking cane. I couldn't see Angel but "perfect" Dylan was the only one who was holding his own against two of knifey's team, a super skinny girl who was tall enough to be a birdkid and a woman who was spewing God-knows-what at him. Knife dude then grabbed me by the hair, baring my throat to one of his knives, whispering into my ear "End of your flight Maximum, you can't run anymore, the mantis has cornered you." When a solid "thunk" sounded behind me and knife guy let go of me.

Experiment 234's POV

I had the mistake in my grip, I was about to slit her throat when a blow smashed into the back of my head. It was the youngest, the one 241 was assigned to catch. What was she doing here? I was dazed from the blow and when my grip slackened Maximum Ride slipped out of my grip yelling for the flock to go airborne so they all wriggled away from my team and took to the air. I tried to follow with my wings but I was dizzy and collapsed. The last thought in my mind was how I had failed, how I had let Maximum Ride escape me as she yelled mockingly "Guess I can run a bit longer then, can't I?" as I slipped into unconsciousness.

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><p><strong>I'll probably post the next chapter after I've fixed the continuity and other bits. Please remember to review, I need them to fuel my tiny ego.<br>Koth.  
><strong>


	2. Getting Fired, Literally

**A/N I actually wrote this chapter straight after I finished the first 'cause I had my ideas still going and if I didn't write it early I would've forgotten the plot and ideas in general. This chapter is mostly filler and it's all Experiment 234's POV, more Max to come. I'll post the next chapter soon once I sorted out a few things like coursework, the curse of the inspired. Thanks to You-are-a-fridge-with-wingss for reviewing, as the first reviewer you earn 10 redemption coins, you can exchange them for things like cities and countries after I take over the world. Or think of them as a memento. And I probably messed up Ter Borcht's accent big time so ignore that if it is.  
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**Disclaimer - I don't own Maximum Ride, I own Experiment 234 and his team as well as the company that actually rules the world and owns all the cake in existence. The company and the cake are lies. Don't forget to review. that part isn't a lie.  
>Koth.<br>**

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><p>Rogue Mantis<p>

Experiment 234's POV

I awoke coughing and retching violently, assessing my surroundings I realised where I was, back at the School. Then the gravity of the situation hit me, we had failed. I had spent all my life training to destroy Maximum Ride and the flock, and I had failed. My team were in the room as well, all conscious but slumped on the floor defeated.

"What happened?" I snapped to the room in general.

"The flock beat us." Experiment 274 replied her sharp features bobbling.

"And whose fault is that? You were supposed to deal with the small one, and I saw you tackling the new one with 259. If you had dealt with her Maximum Ride would be dead!"

"Sir, it was my fault" 259 spoke up "I was trained to fight the other one, Fang, but he wasn't there; that new one was with them instead. I couldn't beat him on my own so 274 came to help me."

"Right, so who was in charge of intelligence then?"

"Me sir" came the response from 286

"And why were we not informed of this replacement for Fang"

"With all due respect sir, you told me that we had all the information we required and therefore I ceased my investigation" he shot back.

As I was about to unleash a stinging retort, the door slid open and Ter Borcht stalked in.

"Dat's quite enough." He spat spraying my face with spittle.

"Sir please let us try again, we won't fail." I stammered they know he's the one person I'm afraid of; he'd always liked zapping me whilst I was training.

"Silence, ve do not tolerate failure; you und your team vill be retired."

Retired, the word spelled a death sentence; we all knew it wasn't some pathetic pension plan. Execution, retirement call it what you like but either way we end up six foot under.

"But sir..." I responded, practically shaking in my boots

"Dere vill be no 'but sirs'. You vill be retired." He screamed

He marched out of the room, the door slid shut and then gas started to fill the room. No, I wouldn't go this way, I struggled but I succumbed to the intoxicating gas

I woke up, stuck in a tiny cage, now where have I seen that before? Glancing around, my teammates were stuck in similar cages. Ter Borcht strolled over to my cage and grinned down at me.

"Und so ends de life of another failure. I vould tell you to meet your maker, but I am already here."

I hated that grin, I hated his face but most of all I hated that ridiculous supercilious attitude of his. Then I noticed, his one mistake, the same mistake all mad scientists make. They could've just gassed us in the room but no, it had to be something dramatic so they forgot to disarm me. I still had all my knives. In less than a second I made a snap decision I wasn't going to take this lying down. I would survive and then after Maximum Ride was dead, I would destroy the School and Itex for ever, and I would personally slice and dice that idiot, Ter Borcht. I unsheathed my blades and cut through the bars like they were paper then all hell broke loose.

Upon this unspoken signal my team broke out of their cages in similar ways. 286 just floated through the bars of his cage and solidified again, snapping a kick into a guard's shins; they had made a big mistake in giving him ghost powers. 274 just melted the bars with her acidic saliva and hopped out landing on several guards spraying more with the corrosive liquid. 267a shattered the bars using a supersonic scream dragging her brother 267b out where he unfurled his wings and took off, swooping down on a guard, smashing the guard's face with a cane, I never understood his need to carry a cane, he claimed it's 'sophisticated', I think it makes him look like an idiot.

I looked and saw 259 struggling with the bars, her stick-thin limbs struggling in vain whilst several soldiers advanced, with their guns raised. Without thinking I hurled myself at the guards, within five seconds the guards were rolling on the ground, evidently in massive agony, and I had sliced open the cage 259 was stuck in. She unfolded from the cage nodded her thanks then hurled herself into the fray knocking down two guards her dragonfly wings unfurled ready for take-off. I sprang back into the action slicing through several guards to reach Ter Borcht.

"Shoot dem, shoot dem!" he cried, and for the first time in my life, I saw him scared. Spurred by this thought I pounced on him holding my wrist knife to his flabby throat as I hissed into his ear.

"Maximum Ride first, then I'll come for you." With that I leaped into the air feeling my iridescent wings unfold as I yelled to the team to leave them.

"Experiment 234, come back" yelled Ter Borcht. Spinning in the air I glared down at him and hollered back.

"I'm not Experiment 234 anymore. I am no longer your plaything. Just remember, once I've killed Maximum Ride, you're next." As I flew away, my team behind me I wondered. Am I becoming like Maximum?


	3. Borrowing' Is Illegal

**A/N -Yes I know this is a quick update but I want to update my stuff as soon as I finish the chapter. This chapter is mostly just plot filler and there will be more Max later on. I will probably finish the next chapter by the end of the week if not sooner, the chapters are a bit on the short side but I try to get at least 1000 words per chapter. And remember to review every one helps and earns the reviewer 10 imaginary redemption coins for when I conquer the Earth.  
><strong>

**Disclaimer - I don't own Maximum Ride, if I did Dylan would've died ages ago and there would be more cookies. I do own Experiment 234 and co.  
>Koth.<strong>

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><p><span>Rogue Mantis Chapter 3<span>

Experiment 234's POV

We're on the run, funny how this happened. First we're going to save the world then, bam. We're running, well flying, for our lives. I wonder whether we are becoming more like the flock, except they were trained by Dr Batchelder to survive, we weren't and can't. We're still in our combat uniforms which are going to draw attention to us. Making a snap decision like a true uninformed idiot I call back to the team.

"We're going to hit the nearest shopping mall, we need civilian clothes ASAP. We stand out too much in these fatigues." Thankfully this order is met with a general assent; they were all too shocked by our escape and desertion of Itex. We never had the drive that led Maximum Ride to escape; perhaps the School learnt a lesson from her creation. Make recombinants with a respect for authority. Fat lot of good that did for them when deserted an hour ago.

It didn't take us that long to find a mall, me being the great leader I am, told the team to pick out any civilian clothes they liked; we were already getting weird looks. I found an outfit in short order, I thought it suited me. Combat boots, dark pants, blood red top and a black trench coat to hide my knives and wrist blades, and as the snappy dresser that I am, finished the outfit with tinted flying goggles. We all met up in the food court and naturally we had all gone for a completely different looks, 286 had naturally gone for ridiculously bright colours which is totally out of place with his ghost powers, he's the only one of us who isn't a recombinant. I think he wants to off-set his rather macabre powers by being the group optimist. The bat twins, 267a and 267b as polar opposites, wore completely opposite clothes. 276b was always a posh idiot so he had got himself a suit, complete with hat and cane; I suppose it complemented his ridiculous posh \British accent. His sister wore much more tatty clothes, ripped up jeans and a grubby sweater; I don't know how she managed to get it grubby in the half an hour she'd had it. 274's clothing was at least slightly normal, a long red dress covered by an anorak to conceal her large wings, and an overlarge pair of sunglasses to hide her multi-faceted eyes, conspicuous but normal. If anything 259 was most normal looking, but it wasn't surprising since she had somehow had kept up with popular culture during our training. A decision that I thought was pointless at the time, I regret that choice now.

"Team, we need names, we're no longer part of Itex so I don't see any reason to keep the designations they gave us." I informed the group. To my intense relief, this statement was met by a general assent, this leader business is much more difficult than I expected.

"I've given it some thought and I have named myself 'Pythus'."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, I'll go next if no-one else wants to, my name is now Spectre" 286 retorted, he was always quick to criticize and never thought of original ideas. The others quickly decided upon their own names, the twins opted for Dodger and Rose; they never had original ideas or understood irony, the day we finished training the School let us have one day to do whatever we liked. The twins rented 'Oliver' and I think it inspired them, in a bad way. 274's name reflected her rather twisted sense of humour, she named herself Andrea. Anyone who doesn't get the reference I shall enlighten you. On the same day that the twins watched 'Oliver' she watched a large variety of horror films, she particularly liked 'The Fly'. She told me that she identified with the main character Andre, since she's part fly. You get the picture. Last, and at the risk of sounding clichéd, but not least, 259 chose to be called Lucy, don't ask me why, she didn't say.

So we're on our way to becoming independent, we have names, proper clothes and a burning desire for revenge. Things were just getting calm when a burly security guy stomped up and grabbed me by the back of my coat. Whilst his cronies grab the rest of the team, beefy raises me up to his eye level, being part bug I am ridiculously light, even lighter than the flock, but I suppose that's 'cause I've got an exoskeleton Yes that's right I have an exoskeleton, it's hard to notice, it looks like normal skin and feels a bit like it too, but hit me and you'll know that it's not just skin when your fist is in agony. So where was I? Oh yes beefy had just picked me up and shouted in my face, that guy had seriously bad breath.

"Right you're under arrest for shoplifting, you and your crew." We hadn't had any money so we'd 'borrowed' the clothes we needed. He really doesn't know any better than to tackle a super-fast part-mantis kid. It really is hard to keep my cool with his rancid breath in my face.

"If you know what's best for you; you'd let us go and get some mouthwash, 'cause frankly, your breath stinks like a sewer." I replied in the calmest tone I could muster.

"Let you go? You must be joking, and what do you mean I have bad breath?"

"I mean that you clearly don't have a regular dental hygiene program or enough sense to let us go before we bash you and your little friends into a pulp." I am losing my patience with this idiot.

"Bash us into a pulp? Ha you couldn't knock the teeth out of a gnat. Go on then give us your best shot."

"I did warn you. I hope you've got a good healthcare plan, who knows, maybe they'll sort out your breath." I retorted sharply and then addressed the group as a whole "Team battle plan beta lambda, no fatalities."

Imagine having the power to make all hell break loose by saying one word. That's how I felt issuing the orders. As one the team twisted out of the guards' grip and battered them like there was no tomorrow. I span with the team landing and flicking my wrist knives out hacked and slashed at beefy. His blows were nothing compared to the punches Maximum had thrown back at the beach. They were so slow I didn't even make much of an effort to dodge them. He was on the ground within two seconds, covered in shallow lacerations; he was going to have a pretty impressive collection of scars. Before we left the team having beat up the other guards I hissed into beefy's ear

"By the way, gnats don't have teeth." Then addressing my flock "up and away." We took off, darting into the growing darkness. We soon found a small wood where we could stay for the night. As the team settled down to sleep, I was kept awake by the nagging thought. Why did I think of them as a flock back at the mall? Perhaps I am becoming more like Maximum, I even told them 'up and away' I regard as a Maximum catchphrase. I settled into an uneasy sleep the ideas whirling around my head.


	4. Welcome To Vengeance 101

**A/N - Another quick update, I made it a bit longer than usual and it's returned to Max's POV. I am also offering redemption points to anyone who can find the pop culture reference in chapter 2 and the reasoning behind Pythus' name, but not to you are a fridge with wingss 'cause I told you already. There's going to be another update soonish, I honestly don't know. These chapters are getting finished faster than I antcipated.  
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** Disclaimer - you know the drill by now, so all together now. I don't own Maximum Ride I only own Pythus, Lucy, Spectre, Andrea, Dodger and Rose. Anybody who actually chanted that just now is either crazy or doesn't know how a computer works, I can't hear you. I can however, read your reviews so plese send some, remember the ten redemption points per review.**

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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 4<p>

A week later

Max's POV

We were back on the run, we hadn't had to do this for ages but that too has passed. I won't say where we settled but it was very far away from the beach. We were just bedding down in some trees, you gotta love 'em, when for the first time in weeks, the voice returned.

'_Max, you need to on your guard.'_

"Thanks voice, could you be less specific?"

"Erm… Max, who're you talking to?" Nudge asked curiously.

"It's the voice again"

"I thought that it would give us some peace for a change" Iggy spoke up, he always took almost being killed badly.

'_Max, Pythus and his team no longer work for the School but they're out for vengeance.'_

"Hello voice? Who's Pythus?"

'_The person who tried to kill you a week ago'_

"Oh. I'm not getting the significance of this."

'_Maximum, it is very straight forward, without Itex to limit them, they have gone rogue but still hold a grudge against you for beating them.'_

"Great, I was happier not knowing what we were running away from."

"Um, Max, what about us running away from someone?" Gazzy asked, his blue eyes wide and trusting.

"Nothing Gazzy, no one's chasing us." I said, flashing Iggy a 'we need to talk' look before remembering he's blind.

After the kids had fallen asleep, I shook Iggy awake and pulled him away from the rest of the group.

"What is it Max; I was dreaming about being able to see."

I quickly gave him the gist of what the voice told me.

"So what you're saying is that there are six psychotic wackos following us because we beat them and they want revenge." I grunted an agreement. "Then why have they separated from Itex?" he asked, his sightless eyes boring into me.

"The voice didn't tell me."

"I wish for once your voice would tell us something we actually need to know." He snapped bitterly, he'd been annoyed since we went back on the run. He'd suggested we go to my mom's house and hide out there, but I crushed this idea, we were safer on the move. I hadn't told anyone, but the fight on the beach scared me. The last time I'd almost been beaten in a fight was back in Germany, fighting that pathetic loser Omega. But this time, we were all thrashed, except for 'perfect' Dylan. That confused me, was he really that great at fighting? He was only one, I think. To be honest I think my 'perfect other half' is a complete idiot.

"Max? Iggy? What are you guys talking about?" Speak of the devil, here comes wonder boy.

"Nothing Dylan, go back to bed." I wish he'd quit bugging me. He's always at it, trying to hit on me. The worst part was when he learnt to fight by watching me; it was creepy the way he stared.

"Max, I know there's something bugging you, now spit it out." He doesn't know when to give up. Oh well, anything to get him off my back.

"Fine, I'm worried that we haven't seen knife guy or anyone from Itex. I've got a nasty feeling that they're somewhere nearby."

50 miles away

Pythus' POV

"They're near, I can tell." I announced to the team, we had been on the run for a week now and had learnt some vital lessons, the most important being, 'people don't like it when you steal their food, cars, money, clothes, personal possessions', the list goes on. But we emerged victorious from our trials and have emerged stronger people, well, stronger genetic freaks. But now we're back on the hunt for revenge, and we're so close I can smell it. No I can seriously smell it, my sense of smell was greatly enhanced, I don't know whether it's the mantis DNA but I can smell Maximum Ride and the flock. Soon revenge would be ours.

"Team, get ready for the hunt, vengeance will be ours!" I feel like some kind of dictator, talking about revenge and stuff, but it is true, we want revenge on the people who have wronged us and no one and I mean no one, will stop us. I unsheathed my blades and started to run through the undergrowth towards the flock.

Half an hour later and 50 miles closer

There they are, up in the trees. Not even one guard, they'll soon learn the price of their lack of vigilance. Signalling quietly, I sent my team into the undergrowth to surround them. The fools hadn't even picked a spot near a clearing where they could take off. We are much more efficient, we can take off vertically whilst they need a run up. My mantis instinct kicked in as I crouched and waited, I can stay completely still for hours on end without falling asleep before striking. I think my record was 30 hours before moving. After everyone was in position I gave the signal and we burst out of the forest weapons ready.

I've got to give them credit, they did wake up almost immediately, but almost immediately isn't good enough, two cuts and two branches with two flailing flock members fall to the ground as we threw ourselves upon our prey. Before I give you a blow by blow account of the fight I'll just tell you about my knives. I don't use guns, I just don't, sure I'm a crack shot with any weapon but anyone can use a gun, so I use knives. It took Itex two years to fabricate them, all my close-combat knives have monomolecular edges so they slice through anything like butter. I have ten blades attached to my gauntlets and boots, all of them are spring-loaded so I can pop them out whenever I want. I also carry at least a fifty throwing knives, I can hit a target 100 foot from me, blindfold. I look like some psycho has put a shredder, a food processor and a whole kitchen of knives together and I am this hellish techno-thing.

Anyway, on with the brawl. Naturally I went straight for Max; it was her fault we'd had to leave Itex, and Ter Borcht. Hang on; I hated Ter Borcht, even before he'd tried to kill me, maybe leaving was a good idea after all. This indecision cost me a kick to the kidneys, and Max a rather bruised foot. Oh no, what's happening to me, I'm calling the mistake 'Max' I never call it 'Max', never. A swift jab to my face broke me from my reverie once again. Purely on instinct, I slashed at her face with my knives, she dodged, but I still caught her arm. Blood splashed out, staining my jacket; such is the price of revenge. It wasn't long before I had the upper hand, and this time, the little one wasn't going to save her. Lucy was still having trouble fighting off that new one, her speed rivalled mine and I am one of the fastest creatures on the planet. She was darting around him battering him with a barrage of punches, the idiot couldn't match her speed but he far outweighed her and he could… There it is again, I've never called anyone an idiot before, not even in the privacy of my own thoughts. Once again I paid for my lapse in concentration; Max smashed a branch into the side of my head sending me reeling backwards. I am a bit ashamed to mention that Max outweighs me by a considerable amount; I weigh less than 40 pounds due to my total lack of bones and a few missing organs. So any hit from most people would knock me at least a foot back. Thinking quickly I span with the impact spinning and leaping back towards Max about to slash her throat when something intercepted me in mid-jump and smashed me against a tree. Growling in fury I extracted myself from the splintered trunk to look at my attacker. We were surrounded by Erasers and several of their replacement Xk-27s.

Max's POV

As knife dude hurled himself at me, time seemed to slow down, his knife swung towards my throat as I thought about Fang and whether he would miss me when something smashed into him sending him crashing into a tree. A quick 360 confirmed we were surrounded by Erasers and Flyboys. Knifey wasn't stuck for long and he pulled himself out of the tree, he was leaking some greenish-red blood from a crack in his skin, eww. I called to him

"Truce 'til we bash these guys?"

"The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend." He spat. "I'll help, but only 'cause they'll kill you if I don't help and I want the satisfaction of killing you." Nice guy isn't he?

"Flock, let's kick some Eraser butt!" I called sprinting to Angel's side.

"Team, battle plan 47 formation 24a" He needs a life if he memorised all his team's battle plan.

At last, an enemy we know we can beat. The next few minutes were a blur of fists, blood and rank Eraser stench. The others were doing well too, Knife guy in particular, the guy was a freaking whirlwind of blades, and the ground around him was stained with blood and littered with the occasional finger or bit of sliced up metal. Then as quickly as it had started, the fight was over, the Erasers were either dead or unconscious and the Flyboys were little more than scrap metal.

"It's over." I called to the flock.

"Yes, and so is your life Maximum." Snarled Knifey and he jumped on me, slamming my back against the floor jamming a knife against my throat. He was about to make the final cut when a voice called out of the woods.

"Nein! You can't kill her!" Oh whoop-de-doo it's Ter Borcht, here he is, ready to gloat over my death. Hold on, 'you can't kill her'? I thought he wanted me to die.

"Why not? The only reason I'm not killing you now is 'cause I'm going to kill Max first." Snapped Knife dude.

"If you kill her, you vill die too." Was Ter Borcht's simple reply.

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><p><strong>Oh yay! A cliffhanger, I was waiting to get this in for ages, why will he die? If the suspense is killing you, and you actually die, tell your family not to sue me. I have no money to pay damages.<br>Koth.  
><strong>


	5. Forgiveness Is Optional

**A/N - Just a quick chapter for plot development and closing of a storyline, There's more to come later, including the possibility of there being a sequel once I've finished the story and maybe some Max/OC fluff in the sequel, maybe. Please Review and give feedback on the idea of Max/OC fluff. You should be able to guess the OC so you should be able to give reasonable ideas. Don't forget the redemption points for reviewing. Still waiting for the pop culture reference.  
><strong>

**Disclaimer - I don't own Maximum Ride, Iggy, Dylan etc. ad infinitum. I've run out of witty comments for this.  
>Koth.<strong>

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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 5<p>

Pythus' POV

I'll die if I kill Maximum Ride. It was the way he said it that made me sure that he wasn't lying. Just that deadpan expression.

"Why?" My voice sounded like ice splintering. "What's so special about her? I thought that you wanted me dead."

"Oh believe me experiment 234, I vould love to kill you, but I am under orders not to. And I follow orders unlike two groups of mistakes I could mention."

"Leave it Doctor." O.K. now that was a scary voice, the kind you get in nightmares. Marian Janssen walked into the clearing.

"Hey 'Mom' long time no see." Max spat, shooting daggers at the director. If looks could kill then we'd have talking to an ex-director, who in theory should've been with the choir invisible. At least then we wouldn't have to look at her if she was invisible.

"If we were going to have a family reunion I'd have brought food." Sarcasm dripped from each word like sickly sweet honey. "Now get on with telling me why I can't kill Max or I'll kill her anyway and find out for myself."

"Very well Pythus I shall explain why you, or for that matter anyone can't kill Max." Oh boy here we go, long boring speech time. "When we created Max and later the rest of the flock, we made the decision to create a fail-safe in case Max did rebel. That fail-safe was you, we made you a week after Max, you might actually remember her when you were babies."

"So I can't kill Max because I was born a week after her?"

"No, I'll tell you about that later. We made your team in anticipation of the flock; I think the youngest of you is ten. So, we trained you from creation to kill Maximum Ride and when she did go on the run with the flock, you were all ready for your task. However, we gave you a new power which we didn't tell you about. Max's original purpose was to save the world so at the time we needed a replacement for her, and there you were ready made. But we couldn't train you from scratch that would take too much time so we gave you the power to imprint Max when you came into contact with her."

"What do you mean 'imprint'?" My curiosity was piqued now.

"When you touched Max, you absorbed her memories, they're all buried somewhere in your mind. But there was a complication, when Dylan joined the flock and replaced Fang, your team couldn't fight him effectively thus leaving Angel free to save Max. When she whacked you around the head, it somehow distorted the effect and you absorbed some of Max's personality, that's why you've been feeling so rebellious."

"I've got some of Max's personality? And how does this mean I can't kill her?" I hadn't noticed my grip on Max had loosened and my blade wasn't digging into her throat anymore.

"Your power hinged on the premise that Max would be dead, since she is alive your body is constantly keeping up a relay between her mind and yours keeping it updated with the latest memories and personality changes, that's how you knew she was here. Now your mind has grown too reliant on this connection and so if your mind can't keep it up for example if Max was dead, your brain would fail and you would die."

"So why do you want us alive if we're both rebels and lead rebel groups?"

"We need to keep you alive so we can study you, this has never happened before and we think it might be a brilliant new development in psychic communication."

"You whitecoats are all the same, always wanting to experiment on us" Max spoke up for the first time in the conversation.

"But my dear, you haven't got the luxury of the choice." With that statement she snapped her fingers and more Flyboys and Erasers marched out of the trees.

"Don't you just love traps?" Iggy's muffled voice came from where Dodger had it planted firmly in the dirt. We all backed towards each other forming a circle, but we knew even with twelve of us there were too many enemies to face. Thinking quickly I had an idea.

"In ten seconds team, throw the flock into the air then follow." I whispered to the group, a couple of whom nodded. In ten second exact, I grabbed Max and threw her into the air, snapping out my wings I followed quickly, buzzing out of the treeline in a bizarre dance of bird, bat and bug, oh and a ghost.

"I'm getting the flock out of here before the Flyboys follow us." Max called to me "Do you still want to kill me?"

"I'm not going to kill you, but I still haven't forgiven you for the beach." I yelled back "I suppose we'll see you around, try not to get killed."

"You too, and I haven't forgiven you for trying to kill me." Came the reply as the flock shot off west.

"Team, let's go." So we flew off towards the rising sun away from Max and the flock, as not quite friends, but not enemies either.


	6. Personality Revamp v2

**A/N – I've decided to post this a bit later than I was planning to 'cause I wanted to get a supply of chapters ready to post if I run out of ideas. I ran out of stuff for the first bit so I started a new plot device. Please review so I get lots of lovely feedback and ideas. And don't forget that you get redemption points for reviewing, I'd copyright the phrase "redemption points" but I bet someone else out there has already used the phrase. Still waiting for the pop culture reference to be submitted, I have decided that you get 15 points for a suggestion per person so no multiple guesses and 50 for the correct answer. In my new world order redemption points will be the currency and as a standard cost one kitten costs 67 points.  
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**Disclaimer – I don't own Maximum Ride and blah, blah, blah. Just read the story, I'm bored of writing these things. I'll get more jokes later.**

Rogue Mantis Chapter 6:

Pythus' POV

It's been at least a fortnight since I last saw Max, back at the forest where we learnt about my mental link with her. The worst part is that since I was told about the locked away memories, they just seemed to burst into my head. I can remember everything that Max has done, I often end up fighting like her and I can remember the feeling of when Max kissed Fang. I try not to remember those bits. Besides I still haven't forgiven her for not dying like she was supposed to, and I doubt I will. So the flock, argh, I keep thinking that. I meant the team and I have been flying east for lack of a better idea. I once considered trying to find our parents, until I realised that was one of Max's memories. I think my mind's breaking down; I feel like I'm switching between myself and Max. One moment I'm thinking about how we can destroy Itex and the next, I'm bemoaning Fang's departure. Why would I bemoan his departure? I never knew the freaking guy anyway; Max did, so I feel like I knew him from when we were kids, trapped in dog crates.

But now we have a plan, we bust into the nearest branch of Itex, steal everything that isn't nailed down and bust our way out again, hopefully taking out a few thugs in the process. It was Banquo's idea in the first place, oh wait, you don't know who Banquo is. I decided that 'Spectre' isn't a great name so I nicknamed him Banquo. He's also got a fixation on vandalism, a taste he shares with Rose; you won't believe the conversations they have about graffiti and smashing up cars. They are seriously twisted freaks, but they're my seriously twisted freaks. We're all insane somehow, I've got the memories of two people locked up in my head, which no-one mentioned in the woods, they just said I'd imprinted her personality but it seems to be fighting my own personality for dominance. Anyway, Andrea is chronically depressed and pessimistic, Rose and Banquo love petty crime and Dodger can't function in the morning without 'a cup of char' and has to wear a suit all the time. In fact the only normal one of us is Lucy, she was always average, we all shone in different areas whilst training, I had the best leadership skills, Banquo's best at infiltration, you get the picture. Lucy had no special talents apart from her natural speed. I suppose that makes her the most human out of all of us. Oh, and she can fly.

So, we're going for the big one, since we were headed east and we agreed to bust into Itex, we only know about one Itex branch near the east coast. The Itex head office, I think we either have a death wish or have gone completely cuckoo. Personally I favour the cuckoo option; I don't intend to die anytime soon, at least not before I've had my revenge. Besides, my death might cause Max to die. So if we do die in the attempt, I'll have some revenge. Small comfort, my death might cause Max to die, emphasis on the might part.

_Do you actually want her to die?_

What? Who said that? Oh great, I remember, Max has a voice, please don't tell me that I can hear her voice too.

_This isn't Max's voice._

Oh goody, a completely new voice just for me. I'm already going crazy from all the memories that I've imprinted, and now I've got a freaking voice in my head, and it's not even mine.

_You need to stop panicking Pythus; you are getting too agitated to concentrate on your goal._

Brilliant, a fortune cookie in my head, sans cookie and a lot more preachy.

_Pythus, when you get agitated, Max's memories and personality become more dominant and start to influence you more._

That statement actually did mean something; I'm never like this normally. I tried to calm down, I really did, but I hate Itex and the School so much, they shut me up in a freaking dog crate! No, no, no, no, no! That's Max's memory, I need to focus.

"Pythus, are you alright?" Lucy's voice cut through the flashing memories, but they kept on going, flying with the hawks, thumping Erasers, going to school, all the adrenaline fuelled escapes, kissing Fang. When I remembered that, I snapped back to myself momentarily, all I could feel was hate directed at that memory, and now that I think about it, any memory of kissing Fang. I forced myself to calm down, I am not Maximum Ride, I am Pythus Strano and I am a human-mantis recombinant experiment. I slowly began to remember myself, trust me; it is very hard to remember yourself when you're going crazy. So I focussed on the one sane thing that I could hear, Lucy's voice asking if I was O.K.

"I'm fine." I replied, trying to keep uncertainty out of my voice. The entire psychotic loss of identity had taken less than a minute. Whilst we were still flying towards the Itex HQ I tried to keep Max out of my thoughts; that had set off the memory flood. But my voice's words made me think, did I want Max to die?

Max's POV

I felt like a railroad spike was jammed into my head. I crumpled to the ground. We'd been taking a rest from flying west, as far away from Pythus as possible. Why have I started calling him Pythus? I don't know, anyway my head was splitting with pain.

"Max? Are you alright?" Dylan asked. Of course I wasn't freaking alright, I was rolling on the ground in agony and he asks if I'm alright? I summoned up all my sarcasm for a scathing reply, when I couldn't. I just couldn't, it was like I'd lost the ability to be sarcastic. This was starting to freak me out, now I couldn't remember stuff, I can't remember what I forgot. I, I can't remember my name. I just can't remember. Then it all came back in a tidal wave of remembrance that almost swept me away.

"What was that?"


	7. Operation Medium Larceny

**A/N - I posted this later than I normally do 'cause I hadn't finished it until now since I needed to do English coursework, love the language hate the subject. Anyway I have decided to add some fluff later, it's not my style but I figured that it would conform to the norms of society. I have not seen a single film without some form of romance or read many books sans romance. I also need more IAQs for my profile so feel free to submit some. Don't forget to review and remember that you get redemption points for it.**

**Disclaimer - I don't own Maximum ride, I am not James Patterson, and I do not intend to assassinate him and tke his position. Although I do have some good refernces if anyone want to hire me, I was the second gunman on the grassy knoll and I shot Greedo first. And for all you know I might be telling the truth. But I'm not.**

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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 7<p>

Max's POV

I was lying on the ground, gasping for air. That was one of the scariest things I have ever experienced, and I have experienced a lot of scary things.

"Max, are you alright?" Dylan clearly wasn't giving up on that.

"I just collapsed and almost forgot who I was, what do you think?" Good to know I can be sarcastic again.

"Max forgot who she is?" Snorted Iggy "I doubt it, she's as egocentric as pretty boy here." Nodding at Dylan, I could see Dylan was irked by this statement but let it slide.

"Max, tell us what happened." Why should I tell him? It's my head and my almost complete loss of personality.

"It's nothing."

"It obviously was something if you were in agony Max." Nudge's concerned voice broke in to the conversation.

"Look, it's nothing, I'm perfectly fine now. I say we get going." That's me, confident leader Max. Without listening to their questions, I took a run up and leaped into the air. You just can't describe what it's like to fly, feeling the wind on your face and you can look down and see all the little people and believe you're king of the world. It's usually enough to make me forget my troubles, but as usual with me, my troubles normally don't like me forgetting them.

_Max, you need to find Pythus._

Brilliant, voice is back.

"Why would I want to find that psychotic idiot?"

_Because if you don't you could both end up dead, you without a consciousness and him driven crazy by you stuck in his head and fighting for control._

I was shocked; this was the first time I'd heard the voice sounding angry.

_I told them not to give him that power, I told them something would go wrong but no, they always know better than me after all, I'm just a…_

There was an awkward pause. If the voice could've cleared its throat, if it actually has a throat, it would've done.

_Anyway, find Pythus, I'll tell you what to do when you find him. He's headed east, he's planning on breaking into the Itex headquarters and if he does the results will be catastrophic. You must find and stop him._

"Well golly that puts it all in perspective that does." I replied sarcastically, ignoring the flock's looks of confusion. "I can't wait to go find a psychotic knife-wielding maniac who has tried to kill me twice already. Oh and did I mention that he's psychotic?"

_Max this is no time for holding grudges or being silly. You might be more motivated if I told you that if Pythus does break into Itex HQ and does die, you might not die like he would if you were to. Instead his mind which was enhanced with ridiculously high survival instincts, would take the only way out it could, along the mental pathway that connects you and him together. You'd end up fighting for control of your body just like Pythus has been._

The voice had been growing in volume until it sounded like it was yelling in my head.

"Fine, O.K. O.K. I'll find Pythus, happy now?" I was fed up with the voice ordering me around, but I'd be more fed up with a knife wielding creep stuck in my head. "Flock, we're going east, little detour, courtesy of the voice."

"Max, frankly I don't know why you listen to that thing." Iggy, he never leaves this kind of thing alone. "All it does is order you around and annoy the rest of us when you follow those orders."

"Thank you for your feedback Iggy, but wait a moment." I said feigning confusion. "What did I just say that sounded like 'please tell me what you think of this choice'? Remember this isn't a democracy here guys, it's a Maxocracy." I wheeled in the air and headed east. Thankfully the flock followed though I saw Iggy glaring at me mutinously and Dylan looking concerned like he thought I was mad. Well maybe I am, but if I'm not and I let Pythus get himself killed, I would definitely go mad with his voice in my head.

Three days later and about 2000 miles eastwards

Pythus' POV

So here we are, about a mile away from Itex HQ. I'd scouted out the place thoroughly with Dodger; recon was one of his specialities. We were sure of everything, entry points, exit points, hiding spots, the works. The one thing we didn't know about was the inside. I only have one memory of Itex HQ and it's not even mine, it's Max's. This psychic link thing has come in handy, for once. All I remember is busting in, rescuing the flock and beating the stuffing out of my, I mean Max's clone. So I know about the layout of one room, we're doomed. But if we do succeed we'll have a bunch of info on Itex and they'll have a busted up headquarters which at the very least should be bad for morale.

_Pythus, this is a bad idea._

Oh great, the voice is back. It's been bugging me all the way here and I'm seriously annoyed at it.

_Max is on the way, she should be here in about an hour._

Why would I want to see her again for? I learnt that I don't need to speak out loud for the voice to hear me, so I don't sound like an insane idiot like Max does and I should know, I remember it.

_If you attack Itex you will in all likelihood get yourself and your team killed._

Um, you didn't answer my question.

_You need to meet so you can sort out your personality problems._

Is she a qualified psychiatrist now or something? Thanks for the 'advice' I was originally going to attack in an hour but you've convinced me to move my schedule forward.

_No! Pythus you must not attack I repeat you must not…_

Blah, blah, blah, if I want to ignore my voice then I shall. I drowned out its insistence that I call of the attack with 'Ride of the Valkyries' it seemed atmospheric.

"Team, I've moved the attack forward, we attack now. Max and the flock are on their way and I have no intention of meeting them again." This statement was met with a few half-hearted cheers, and Andrea's typical prediction of doom. So we took off flying silently towards Itex. Operation medium larceny is a go.

Max's POV

_Max you must hurry! Pythus has initiated his attack an hour early because his voice told him you would arrive in an hour._

"Oh well that was clever, hold on did you say his voice?"

_Just get to him before he gets slaughtered by Itex's new guards._

"What new guards?"

_Never mind now, just save him, do you want him stuck in your head for the rest of your life?_

"I suppose not." I muttered as I poured on the speed.

Pythus' POV

Things went pear-shaped from the moment we landed. Alarms went off and typically we were surrounded by a bunch of guards and my favourite whitecoat, Roland Ter Borcht.

"Ve told you dat ve vould catch you." He sneered "Kill them." Like we hadn't heard that one before. He pronounced his death sentence as if in passing, and he marched off leaving us to the tender mercy of the guards. These were a new model of guards, when I sliced into one my blade passed right through its chest. Great, they were made out of nanomites, just our luck. It then increased the size of its fist and punched me in the face. I felt like I'd been hit by a ridiculously large bit of metal, which I had been. So began the team's first defeat in our entire existence. We couldn't cope against the constant onslaught of robots, especially ones we couldn't slice, punch, kick, hit with a cane and the list goes on. Only Banquo wasn't getting pounded, he just stayed intangible, but when he stopped to hit one he got battered. But I suppose it's thanks to Rose that I've still got my wings and general shape of my body. Two 'bots had grabbed me by all six limbs; we're counting wings as limbs here, and started to pull. So I was in excruciating pain, trying to stop the bots, when one blew up. Turns out that when we last met the flock she'd 'borrowed' a few of Iggy's bombs, which she used to blast a few 'bots up but ran out. So we would've been dead, if I hadn't heard four of the best words ever

"Fire in the hole!" Much as I hate to admit it, but we were saved by the flock. They swooped in distracted the 'bots a bit and then flew off, with us in hot pursuit. When we were about 20 miles away, we landed. I felt that I was obliged to thank Max, so I walked over.

"Thanks for saving our hides back there." I hated myself for saying the words but if I'm not polite then I'm nothing. So guess what she does, she turns to look at me, and then she slapped me across the face. Normally it wouldn't hurt because of my exoskeleton but it stung a lot, but I think the pain was mostly psychological after all; I had just thanked her for helping us not get killed.

"That" She shouted at me, her voice trembling with emotion "is for going and almost getting yourself killed." What had triggered this sudden outburst of emotion? I was struck by a thought; did she actually care for me? But she was still pining over Fang wasn't she?

_Don't kid yourself. She's only upset because if you had got yourself killed, she'd have had to share her head with your mind._

The voice might have a point, but it didn't see the emotion in her eyes when she hit me. I might have only been in the 'real' world for a month and had emotions for the same amount of time; but I could see that look wasn't faked, she did care about me. I then realised with a jolt, that I cared for her too.

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><p><strong>AN - Oh goody, a cliffhanger charged with romantic tension. I'll post the next one in a few days, stupid homework.**


	8. Burying a Grudge

**A/N - Late update 'cause I've had to waste huge amounts of my time researching for English coursework. This chapter is mostly plot development, no epic fights until later. These author's notes are becoming shorter and shorter each time. Please review you get rdemption points and apologies in advance to anyone insulted by Rose's Cockney accent or Dodger's upperclass proper English. If you flame me I will hate you for the rest of your insignificant life and ignore the flame.  
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**Disclaimer - I don't own Star Wars... Oh, wrong disclaimer. **

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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 8<p>

Pythus' POV

I didn't know what to say; I was staring at her with my mouth hanging open in that lovely gormless way that's so endearing. I have studied every military campaign by Julius Caesar, Rommel, Major Lawrence, Napoleon and Genghis Khan Etc.; I am a tactical genius and in my spare time, classically educated so I can speak Latin and Greek as well as other modern foreign languages, compose classical music and take part in political debates. But the one thing they missed out of my education was how to reply to someone who has just saved your life and then slapped you round the face and is quite probably in love with you. I suppose that sort of thing doesn't crop up in classical literature. Before I could come up with a snappy retort she turned on her heel, odd, she's got a just healed scar across her cheek. Oh wait, that was probably me when I got a bit slash-happy on the beach. I gathered the team and we sat a few yards away from the flock, who looked like they were having a meeting.

"So we just made complete idiots of ourselves and had to be rescued by the flock. Anyone got any comments before we move onto what we're going to do next?" I asked the team.

"I think that we should've just let them kill us, it would've saved us the wait." Typical Andrea, always starting with a depressing, suicidal comment.

"Thank you Andrea for that 'enlightening' insight. Anyone else?"

"We could try and bust in again. They won't expect us again so soon." Juvenile delinquent Banquo, he never did excel at tactics, only bashing things with his signature baseball bat.

"Yeah, we could team up wif them." Agreed Rose, indicating the flock with her crowbar. Rose has been Banquo's perennial partner in crime since they were kids, yes, crime they've trashed about twenty cars and robbed three convenience stores, I regret telling them about 'Grand Theft Auto'.

"No way are we teaming up with the flock. Any other suggestions?" Good ideas are always hard to think of.

"We could break intoh anuhthah branch of Itex, attacking their headquaaarters wasn't jolly sensible," Dodger has always sounded like a posh idiot, but his suggestion was the best so far.

"If no-one else has any better suggestions we'll go with Dodger's idea."

_You must go with the flock to the Institute of Higher Living._

"What? I am not going with them." I exclaimed, in perfect unison with Max. O.K. major freak out point here, we just said the same thing at the same time.

_This why you need to go, you and Max have begun to synchronise. Not only is her personality seeping into yours, the link has become two-way. You're becoming the same person; we both gave you the same message at the same time to test our theory._

"There is no way I'm becoming like her." Perfect unison again, just replace 'her' with 'him' for Max's response.

The rest of the group were staring in confusion at our dialogue with a voice that only we can hear and a shared personality.

"This is as bad as having a clone" I told Max

"I should know I already have one." She retorted; this was getting tiresome.

"Of course I know, I remember fighting it." Our conversation was going back and forth one sardonic comment after another.

"You know, this wouldn't be happening if you had complied with your execution at the beach." I yelled at her

"Oh yeah, and what about you? I doubt you 'complied' when Ter Borcht tried to kill you." She shot back.

"That was different, he wouldn't have needed to execute us if we'd executed you. This is all your fault!" I shouted back, the volume of our voices was rising. Oh no, I couldn't tell which was mine anymore, they'd blended together into one voice ranting. This was really freaking me out. I tried to signal to Max to shut up but she didn't notice.

"Max, shut up!" I hollered at her.

"I'll shut up when I want to!"

"Max, listen to me, listen to you." I pleaded, ugh, an all-time low, pleading to Maximum Ride. Perhaps she heard the panic in my voice 'cause she clapped her hands over her mouth. Calming down, I asked her.

"Truce 'til we sort out this psychic link thing?" Worst word ever, 'truce'.

"Truce." She replied and we shook on it.

Max's POV

So the twelve of us are flying north, I wish we didn't have to go with Pythus and his team, but I want him out of my head ASAP.

"You know he's in love with you?" It was Angel; she's been sweet since I broke up with Fang, but I couldn't forget the way she usurped my position. "And I know that you like him."

"What? I don't like him; he's an idiotic self-absorbed knife-crazed psycho who's stealing my personality!" Seriously, why would I like him?

"And Angel, what were you doing reading my mind?"

"Max, it's time you got over Fang, he's probably not gonna come back."

"How do you know?" Angel started to look guilty, I could always tell when she's hiding something. "Angel, how do you know?"

"If you must know, I've been reading his blog."

"What did he say on his blog?"

"I don't think you should know Max."

"Tell me." I needed to know.

"Fine, but when I tell you what he's done, don't blame it on me."

"Just tell me"

"He's hooked up with a bunch of kids like us and called them 'Fang's gang'."

"Go on." This wasn't so bad I guess, so what if he'd started his own flock.

"And he's recruited Max II."

"What?" That was way out of line. Joining up with _her_? "This is all your fault Angel!"

"I told you not to blame me!"

"But it is your fault; you're the one who drove him away after you delivered him to Dr Hagen Daaz and got him killed!"

"I didn't know what Dr Gunther-Hagen was going to do; he told me it was safe!"

"Look Let's just forget about this and don't say a word about this to the rest of the flock or Pythus and his lot."

"Um, Max? We heard everything." Nudge interrupted awkwardly. Great, I hadn't realised we'd been shouting.

"And I know, this memory link thing is rather useful." Pythus called out. Is there no way to keep a secret these days?

"Max likes that git?" Dylan asked, hadn't he just heard our conversation, probably of in his weird fantasy world where he thinks I like him.

"Of course I don't." I called back.

"Max, I know when you're lying, and you're lying now even if you don't know it." I knew I wasn't lying.

"Just leave her alone and let's just get to New York." Pythus shouted.

"Leave it alone? Not likely, this is the most entertaining thing that's happened all journey old fruit." Did everybody have to get in on this? I'm getting sick of everybody getting in on this.

"Everybody just shut up about it alright; the next person to talk about my love life gets a punch comprende?" I yelled. Thankfully they shut up about it though I could hear Iggy singing 'can you feel the love tonight' under his breath. At the rate we're going we should reach New York by next week if these guys keep on gossiping, God.


	9. Actually I Prefer Seattle

**A/N - Another chapter, whoo. Took longer than expected but I hope it's worth the wait. Remember to review and that you get 10 redemption points for doing so. Oh and the plot device is coming to an end so I'll need to think up a new one.**

**Disclaimer - I own Maximum Ride and everything else that James Patterson has ever written and will ever write since I threatened him at gunpoint. I was lying, I don't own Maximum Ride, if you believed me you are ridiculously gullible and the moon is made of cheese. If you believed that then you are thick as well as gullible.**

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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 9<p>

Pythus' POV

300 miles after I remembered that conversion with Angel, and they were still going on about it, it's starting to annoy me.

"Max and Pythus sittin' in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G"

"Rose, will you shut the heck up!" I am sick of people going on about this supposed romance.

"Oy, leave Rose alone." Banquo called over, red eyes flashing, I think he's got a thing for Rose but nobody goes on about that. Did I say red eyes? I forgot to mention, Banquo is albino, we think it's something to do with his weird ghost powers, maybe having no pigment in his skin means he can go invisible easier.

"Hey guys! There it is, New York!" Called out Lucy, who was flying at the head of the group.

"I can see it!" Shrieked Nudge, the teasing about Max's relationship with me meant that the team bonded with the flock, at our expense.

"I can't." Replied Iggy in his usual sarcastic manner.

"Iggy, we're all rolling our eyes." Max and I retorted as I knew she would, and like I had done so many times before, no Max had done. We'd been synchronising more often now.

"Max, can I have a copy of your script?" Joked Gazzy lamely.

"Ha ha" laughed Andrea drily.

Unfortunately this was what the last 300 miles sounded like. The team has lost its edge recently, the worst part is that I think it's my fault; I'm the one who inspired them. But then I was forcibly inspired by Max, it all boils down to her, it's all her fault. If I were my usual self, pre-personality download, I would've had no problem with killing her, even at the cost of my own life. Like I said, it all boils down to Maximum Ride, even when I'm not blaming people i.e. Max. It really does annoy me, I used to be the most efficient cold-blooded killer in the world, no Eraser, Flyboy or 'bot could beat me, heck not even super-boy Omega could win against me and here I am thinking about settling down with Max, I'm only 16 what am I doing thinking about 'settling down'? On the positive side, I now know why I despise the memories of kissing Fang, turns out I was jealous, me jealous, and pigs will fly, which they did, for the few weeks of its life before it died, it was not pretty. I saw it first hand; the gunk took ages to get off my uniform.

But here we are New York, the Big Apple and the stationary circus that's on 24/7 and is potentially filled with Itex agents; I remember our last visit, no, Max's last visit.

"I hope they've forgotten about us since our last visit." Nudge voiced my concerns, I hope she can't read minds too, that's just what I need.

"Nah, I'm sure they've forgotten us by now." Max reassured her, I wasn't so confident, the public might've forgotten us but Itex won't have and those new guards really worried me.

We touched down in central park, talk about déjà vu, tucked away our wings; I snapped my wing cases over them. I'm the only one in the team who has wing cases, flies and dragonflies don't have them, mantises do, just another snippet of entomological info for ya. So we just strolled out of the trees real calm and inconspicuous and we're surrounded by Erasers, typical. Well there were no preliminaries to the fight, no witty banter, no ultimatums and no gloats we just went for each other's throats, literally. The good thing was they were Erasers the bad thing was that I'd lost my edge, I was slower than usual and I was getting pounded. My blades were out I was hacking like a demented lawnmower but didn't seem to hurt anyone. Until I saw an Eraser get Max in a headlock. Then naturally all the psychotic 'I'm in love with Max' protectiveness bubbles up, the self-preservation kicks in and I start fighting well for a change. I hope the voices are going to help us fix the personality transfer 'cause if the only way I can fight is when Max is in mortal peril I'm going to be a big liability. Soon the air is filled with flying fur and splashes of blood, I hate the stuff, tastes foul and stains worse than tomato sauce. How did they know we were going to land here anyway? The battle was over in less than tem minutes, there were twelve of us, half of whom are exceedingly efficient killers. Seriously, even Lucy has no qualms about killing and she's supposed to be the nice, sensitive person. So we quickly dragged the bodies out of sight, I think people wouldn't be pleased if they found a load of dead and unconscious human-lupine recombinant experiments that were previously unheard of. I mean who would? They were ruining the natural beauty of the place and making a mess. We concealed our various weapons of moderate destruction and strolled out of central park like a nice normal group of kids who hadn't just beat up a load of Erasers.

"Can't you control your teammates?" Whispered an irate Max. "They didn't have to kill them."

"'Course I can't control them, it's how we were trained, to use lethal force whenever necessary."

"But it wasn't necessary." Came the reply through gritted teeth

"Of course it was necessary; they were going to kill us. You might think you're so street-smart Maximum and I might've only been living in the 'real world' for a few weeks but let me tell you something. It's a wolf eat birdkid world out there and it's kill or be killed, I know Itex much better than you do Max, I lived with them for 16 years and they are ruthless. Think of the worst thing they could do to you, multiply it by a thousand and you're still nowhere near close to what they'd do to you. So don't go on at me and my team about using lethal force, it's always necessary. Can you smell cookies? Oh and by the way, you've got Eraser blood on your face."

Great ending, I had a great rant going on about Max's superior attitude when the smell of cookies jerked me out of 'rant mode'. Ah cookies, memories of baking them at mom's house flooded in, no, no, no! These were Max's memories, for the fifth time in the time we'd been travelling to New York I had a Max personality relapse. Max and I collapsed, memories shot past my mind's eye I was only vaguely aware of the team and flock crowding around us and passers-by muttering about crack heads or something. Luckily I knew that I would be launched out of Max's memories as soon as I remembered kissing Fang, then my anger and jealousy kicks in and drags me out. But the memory didn't come; the pain was intense, other memories were flickering past but not any of kissing Fang, which is typical since more recently all the memories were either kissing Fang, thinking about Fang and general lovey-dovey stuff. Then finally a memory passed my mind's eye and I locked onto it desperately. It was half-remembered, when I was shot full of valium and holding Fang's hand and saying 'I love you Fang.' Or something like that. Then the kick came and I resurfaced from the flood taking a huge breath, in perfect harmony with Max.

We didn't mention the memory breakdown; we rushed to the nearest station and hurried off down the tunnel and into the sewers.

"Is it just me, or are there more rats here than last time?" Asked a worried Nudge, she was right, there did seem to be more rats than before. We dashed through the tunnels at record speed until we reached the door. It was locked.

"Iggy, pick the lock." Max commanded in that annoying superior way of hers.

"It'll take too long, every second we waste means we're a second away from becoming clones of one another. Rose, pass me your crowbar." I wondered vaguely whether the whole clone thing would extend to physical changes, I decided it was too freaky for me to even think about. I wedged the crowbar between the door and the wall and with one solid push, cracked it open. Handing back Rose's crowbar, which she has affectionately dubbed 'Mr head-basher', O led the way down the stairs into the main lab room.

The room was dark, which should've screamed 'TRAP', but I didn't care, I was too busy thinking about getting Max out of my head. As soon as we'd all entered the room, predictably the door slammed shut and locked itself. The lights then flicked on and we were surrounded by nanomite guards and Ter Borcht standing right in front of us singing softly.

"I like New York in June, how about you?" The discharge of twelve dart rifles, the last thing I heard was Max muttering

"I _hate_ anaesthetics." Before I slipped off into oblivion vaguely remembering telling Fang how much I loved him.

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><p><strong>AN - 50 redemption points to anyone who can name the singer of the song that Ter Borcht quotes, tell me in your review.**


	10. I Never Liked Rearmament

**A/N - I'm disappointed no-one's reading or reviewing my story, if I were more into the young generation's text talk stuff I would be putting a sad face. But I won't. So to combat this I have decided that reviews now earn 20 redemption points and remember that one kitten will cost 57 redemption points. So please review.**

**Disclaimer - I don't believe in ownership anymore, material goods are irrelevant, we all die anyway. If anyone was inspired by that, feel free to send all your worldly possessions to me and I shall ensure that you won't be corrupted by the evils of material goods.**

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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 10<p>

Max's POV

When I woke up, the others were still out and we were strapped to tables. On the positive side, they weren't dog crates; on the negative side we were still trapped. The others started to wake up one at a time, as soon as Pythus woke up; he tried to break out and failed miserably. Not even Spectre or whatever the hell his name is, could get out, he couldn't pass through the straps that restrained us. Then I noticed the smell, antisepticy and sterile, the flock and I _hate_ it. It was all I could do to not have a panic attack, the flock were having similar problems and surprisingly so did Pythus.

_Max calm down, this wasn't part of the plan, something's gone wrong; someone's been intercepting and interfering with my transmissions._

"What was the freaking plan then?" I shouted, thankfully Pythus didn't shout at the same time.

_We intended for you and Pythus to prevent his personality from leaking into your mind or yours leaking into his mind._

"You mean you were never going to get rid of this psychic link thing in the first place?" Well this sucks, we came here to get rid of the link thing and now we're trapped in the institute and we find out that they never were going to get rid of it in the first place, and the worst part of it all, One of Pythus' psychotic teammates is singing 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' completely out of tune, good to know I've got my priorities right.

So we were stuck there playing 'I-spy' for ages with Iggy making sarcastic comments about him being blind. Pythus was still struggling against his bonds, still making no progress.

"I thought you had more than a hundred knives or something." I called over "Can't you cut your way out?"

"They disarmed me, unfortunately they learn from their mistakes. They took our other weapons as well." He shot back

"Glad to see they're being thorough" I spat; he really is the most annoying person ever, even worse than Fang or Dylan.

"This is all your fault you know." He snarled at no one in particular.

"My fault? How is it my fault? You're the psycho whose fault it is, if you hadn't tried to kill me none of this would have happened!"

"If you had complied with your execution, none of this would have happened either, I was just doing my job!" Everyone had gone quiet now; all were listening to the argument, not wanting to miss anything.

"'Comply' with my execution! How many people have you killed that 'complied' with their execution. Anyway, you didn't 'comply' with your execution!"

"I wouldn't have had to break out if you hadn't died like you were supposed to; we were supposed to save the world by killing you, besides you've got off easy. Andrea's mouth has been clamped shut so she can't use her acidic saliva; Angel has a psychic dampener strapped to her head; Nudge has electromagnets hooked up to her arms and I'm missing an arm!"

"Missing an arm?" This revelation shocked me, they hadn't hurt the rest of us why him?

"Accident long time ago, fire at the school and I got caught right in the middle of it, it melted part of my armour so it fused to my skeleton. It hurt like hell after and the whitecoats couldn't get it off, I told you they'd disarmed me." He half-joked, I rolled my eyes at his twisted humour, Iggy and Gazzy just busted out laughing.

"If anyone feels like developing some freakish new mutation, now would be a good time." I told the group, Itex had learned from its mistakes, good for them, bad for us. Nudge couldn't magnetise anything, Angel can't use her powers, Pythus has lost all his knives and an arm and none of his lot can use their powers either. We are well and truly doomed.

Pythus' POV

I hate being trapped, I am terrified by enclosed spaces, no matter how big they are and if I can't get to the sky I hate it. To make things worse, I'm missing my right arm, there's just a bleeding stump where they cut just above the elbow. But that part doesn't matter much, I can always get Andrea and Dodger to make me a new arm; they excel at mechanics and that sort of thing. What gets me is that we've been trapped here for an unknown amount of time and probably will be for some time.

Several hours later.

I woke with a start; I'd fallen asleep without noticing. I was still in the room with the others, they were asleep. Oh great, they gassed us, then I realised my arm wasn't hurting any more. I turned my head to look at it; the whitecoats had attached a new arm. I'd say they weren't bad if they hadn't just gassed us, chopped off my arm in the first place and tried to kill us. But the new arm wasn't that bad, it looked weird, I could see all the internal workings, I could see the bits of metal flex when I moved my fingers. So I wasn't going to bleed to death; that was probably why the white coats fixed up my arm. We were still strapped to the tables, which wasn't an improvement but slightly better than dog crates. Soon after everyone else had woken up, the door to the room slid open and the bane of my existence, Ter Borcht, marched in, flanked by two nanomite guards. I summoned up all of my recently acquired sarcasm to throw at him, but he ignored me entirely and spoke to the two guards.

"I only require Maximum Ride and Experiment 234, the others are not required, exterminate them." Talk about efficient, they've cleaned up their act, no incompetent fools, just the kind of operation I would run. But in my current position I wasn't appreciative of their concern about their shoddy track record. So they wheeled the flock and my team out of the room, some of them looked pretty scared, thinking back perhaps I should've tried to look reassuring.

"So, ve have captured you just like ve said ve vould." He smirked down at me. "Though I strongly argued against it, ve have replaced your missing arm as a show of goodvill."

"What's the catch? I know this is real nice and all but haven't you ever heard of 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'? Tell us what you want." I snap back, quickly losing my patience with Ter Borcht.

"Alvays straight to the point Experiment 234, ve merely vant to study you and Maximum and the psychic bond you have created."

"And I'm sure that's all you want to do." Max broke into the conversation

"Vell, if you help us, ve vill not retire you, you could be pivotal in our plans."

"And what are these plans exactly?" I asked him, I was intrigued by his offer of non-retirement.

"Ve are re-initiating the re-evolution plan."

"Don't you psychos ever give up? We stopped you once we'll stop you again." Max interrupted again.

"Max, shut up!" I yelled at her, I was sick of her constant interruptions, and then nodded to Ter Borcht to continue.

"Ve only need one of you to study but that one needs to be cooperative but it vould be better if ve had the two of you."

"And you seriously think that we'll cooperate?" She then glanced over at me and a look of horror crept over her face. "Oh no, you can't seriously be thinking of joining him. If you look in a dictionary, under 'untrustworthy' you'll find a picture of him under it and under 'gullible', 'stupid' and 'idiot' you'll find a picture of you."

"Think about it Max, not being hunted down by Itex, not having to stay on the run all the time. I don't know about you but I'm going to work with them." I told her.

"But what about your team?" She asked desperately.

"I never cared about them; they were just teammates, never friends." I then turned to Ter Borcht "I'll do it; I'll help you if you give me your word that you won't retire me."

"I give you my vord, and you Max, vill you help us?"

"No freaking way!" She yelled at him in that oh so eloquent manner of hers, then spat in his face.

"Fine, take her to the holding cells, vith the mistakes to be terminated. And unstrap him."

"Pythus please don't do this." She was pleading with me; I've never heard her do that before.

"My name is not Pythus, I have no name my designation is Experiment 234." I informed her coldly, as I turned my back on her as she was wheeled out of the room.

Max's POV

That freaking idiot, how could he trust them? I was wheeled through several corridors until I was deposited roughly in a room with the flock and Experiment 234's team.

"Max, what's happened?" Gazzy asked, he looked scared.

"He turned traitor, Experiment 234 turned traitor." I told him, I could tell how defeated I sounded.

"Pythus turn traitor? I don't believe it." Stated one of his teammates.

"You'd better believe it mate." Even I couldn't believe it, we were stuck somewhere under New York, Experiment 234 had turned traitor and the flock and team were sentenced to death. I couldn't see how we were going to get out of this one.


	11. What's Worse Than Pyromania?

**A/N - I've decded to make the series much darker starting from the end of this chapter, and to do this I've decided to kill someone off and shatter a few character's sanity. So if you don't like that kind of thing don't read on. If you are reading on then don't forget to review. 20 redemption points for a review, I'm getting desperate here. Please will someone new read my story please!**

**Disclaimer - After a sudden change of fortune I managed to buy the rights to Maximum Ride off James Patterson. Being the person I am I put it on Ebay, but I'm sure no-one will want to buy it. Oh, someone's clicked the buy now button. I no longer own Maximum Ride, James Patterson bought it back.  
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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 11<p>

Max's POV

So this it, we're going to die. Normally I prefer being optimistic in these situations, but in this case I honestly can't see a way out. None of us can use our powers, well, we can't use the useful ones, Iggy can still feel colours but that's not particularly good for breaking out of prisons. I think one of Experiment 234's neurotic friends is getting to me, she's constantly telling everyone how we should commit suicide and save ourselves the wait. They aren't being particularly useful, one of them is bemoaning the loss of 'Mr head-basher' whoever heck that is, one keeps on trying to run through the walls and the other two are sitting on the floor, drinking tea. I don't know what he's taught them, but it isn't at all useful. So we'll just sit here, awaiting our death. Well, the others are awaiting death, that thought isn't exactly comforting though. I'm sure that traitor would be comforted no end by the fact that he's not going to die. I wonder what's worse, death or imprisonment for life? The suspense is killing me.

About 2 hours later, the doors swept open and a bunch of the new guards showed up. Every time I see them they look different, hooray, 'bots that keep changing. I'll call them change-bots; I could be more imaginative but the looming prospect of death kinda makes you prioritize survival over humour.

"The anomalies to be executed will follow." Barked head change-bot, everyone jumped to their feet but naturally made no move to go with them.

"And why do you think we will follow you?" I asked it, seriously, that's one thing they haven't learnt, we don't like getting killed.

"You will follow or else we will use force." No-one moved, the 'bots seemed confused by this. Itex never programmed their 'bots to understand rebellion. After about five minutes of waiting the change-bots stamped forward and grabbed Iggy and Nudge. Then all hell broke loose, the moment the 'bot grabbed Iggy, it burst into flames. I am not joking, it went up in smoke. Everyone was stunned, heck I was stunned, what did Iggy do? Confused by the sudden demise of one of their friends, the 'bots just stood there; at least until Iggy snapped his fingers and they caught fire too. So we ended up standing in front of a twisted pile of metal. The only people who weren't standing in a state of shock were Iggy and one of Experiment 234's crew.

"You're pyrokinetic." She stated, gazing at Iggy in awe.

"Pyro what?" Gazzy asked looking confused.

"Haven't you watched 'Firestarter'?" She sniffed, glancing around seeing our looks of utter confusion. "He can start and control fire." She explained like she was talking to idiots.

"Control fire? Awesome!" Cackled Gazzy, everyone else just stepped away from Iggy warily; we all knew he was a pyromaniac. His new power fit but probably wasn't sensible.

"Guys are we going to leave or just wait here for some more guards to show up?" I asked breaking the uneasy atmosphere, giving Iggy the ability to start fires might be worrying but without we'd be six feet under. Since no-one argued, I led the way and hopefully we were headed towards the exit. I just hope that they don't know we're escaping.

Experiment 234's POV

Alarm bells started ringing; I was just testing out my new arm and fixing my knives when it went off. I've been trained to not panic when alarms go off, no one else was either. That's what I like, efficiency, everyone calm and organised, not like the chaos of the flock. It's a good thing they're being executed. Oh great, that's just brilliant, I thought Itex had cleaned up their act. I just remembered escaping with the flock and team. There's going to be hell to pay, Ter Borcht had assured me that the execution would not fail, I was looking forward to the demise of the banes of my existence for the past month. I knew that if anyone was going to be able to stop them from escaping, I was. Once Itex started failing they would inevitably continue down the slippery slope. Sheathing my knives I stalked off to find Ter Borcht.

Max's POV

Alarms started ringing before we'd gone 10 feet.

"Run for it!" I called back to the group as I broke into a sprint. Dashing through corridors, doors flashing past as we ran turning corners at random, left, right, left again. We had no idea of how to get out. We just ran aimlessly, but we didn't meet a single guard, maybe they were on lunch break, I don't care so long as they're not killing me. I barrelled down a corridor, until I saw something that brought me to a halt, the others crashing into me. Experiment 234 was standing in the middle of the corridor; there was no way to get past him, typical, to come so far only to get cut down by Mr Psycho.

Experiment 234's POV

They were ridiculously predictable; I'd been standing there for about ten minutes before they showed up. I wasn't about to take on all eleven of them, especially with Iggy's new fire-starting powers.

"My quarrel is with Max, therefore I propose this. I fight Max, one on one, hand to hand, if I win you all get executed, if you win, I'll let you go free and have your weapons back. If you refuse my offer, you will all die." I placed my ultimatum before them.

"And why should we trust you?" Asked Dylan warily.

"Because if I'm not honest, I'm nothing."

"It's fine guys, I've got this." Max told them waving for them to keep back.

"Fine, if anyone tries to intervene, you all die." I had spent ages coming up with my challenge; I thought it was quite good. I'd fought Max before, both times I'd been at a disadvantage but now, I knew exactly how she fights and can predict her next move. And I have a mechanical arm which should make up the difference in strength between us. She lunged at me before I was ready, not that it made much difference. I effortlessly dodged her roundhouse kick and threw a right jab which connected with her jaw. The next minute was just me battering Max with a flurry of punches until she smashed me in the face and I felt my nose break. I stepped back to assess my condition, minor bruising and a broken nose, Max was looking much worse, I'd managed to black her eye and probably broken a few of her ribs as well. She snapped an uppercut that whipped my head back followed by a kick my kidney that sent me flying backwards, I hate being lighter than Max. In fact even Angel could probably pick me up and throw me across the room without difficulty. As I got up she launched a spinning kick that smashed me against the wall, I knew when I was beaten, besides I wanted her to beat me, I have a far worse way of exacting revenge.

"You win Max, here're your weapons, the exit's down this corridor and then on the second right." I told them handing back the weapons.

"Aren't you coming with us?" Lucy asked

"Why would I go with you? I am re-employed here, but this won't be our last meeting. Oh and Max, you might want to get to Arizona, Jeb's dead and they're going for your mom next." They ran out of there pretty quick after I told Max that her mom was next on the list. I walked back to the interrogation room where Dr Martinez was strapped to a chair.

"Now then Dr, tell me about Ella."

Max's POV

About 2500 miles southwest

"Mom? Mom!" We'd flown as fast as possible, Experiment 234's team had tagged along, they said they owed us for helping them get out of the institute. We'd reached my mom's house in record time, whatever his other faults and believe me he has a lot, Experiment 234 does not lie. I burst through the door and ran into the living room and you will not believe what I saw. Experiment 234 was standing there, with Ella and his knife at Ella's throat.

"What are you doing here?" I spat with such venom he almost flinched

"Like I said Max, my quarrel is with you and this is the best way to settle it. Oh and if any of you move, little miss Martinez here is going give the room a lovely new colour scheme."

"Let my sister go, I thought you said that my mom was next on the list." I told him through gritted teeth

"And she was when I told you, unfortunately the moment you left she was moved off the list and your sister took prime position." He was smirking at my obvious distress. "Sorry about this Ella, it's nothing personal, if the idea that you were used as part of a greater plan isn't comforting, blame it on your sister." And he slit Ella's throat.


	12. Good Thing He's Not Called Dent

**A/N - I know this is a rather quick update but I wanted to finish what I call 'the grief' double. At the behest of you are a fridge with wingss I will add IggyxLucy in a later chapter, but he needs to get over Ella's death which will take a while, and I have better plans for the relationship. Please review, 20 redemption points per review. Oh and I'm going to mentally scar a whole lot more characters before I'm done with this series.  
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**Disclaimer - I don't own Maximum Ride. There, short and sweet.**

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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 12<p>

Experiment 234's POV

As I dropped Ella's convulsing body to the floor, all I could hear was Max's scream. The flock and Co. stood there; too stunned to move. Then after the moment had passed, Max threw herself at me, she had a weird demented look in her eyes. That is until I threw a knife that pinned her shirt to the wall.

"Nothing personal." I told Ella as she bled on the carpet. When I turned away, I sensed something hot streaking towards me. I ducked out of the way as a tongue of fire lanced over my head. Spinning away, I saw Iggy waving his hands, controlling the conflagration. I rolled and dodged each blast of fire; his aim was erratic, blinded by grief no doubt. But he was managing to set the rest of the house on fire so I had less places to run, the others had grabbed Ella and unpinned Max from the wall and ran out of the house. I ran for the stairs, if I could get to the top floor there might be a window I can go U&A out of. Flames exploded around me, this was just like the fire at the school, the one that fused my arm to my gauntlet. I tried to run into a bedroom but flames burst into life in front of me, another room, the flames reared up there as well. They're taunting me I can tell. There's no way out, on one side flames on the other Iggy advancing up the stairs, perhaps with 20/20 hindsight it wasn't such a great idea to kill Ella but it's too late to apologise there's only one way out; through the fire and the flames and out the window. Ah well, he who dares wins. So I ran through the fire into the inferno and crashed through the window. I could feel the fire on me, my clothes must've caught. My face and my left arm were in agony as I fell 30 feet to the ground, it evened out the pain a little bit. My face felt like it was melting as I staggered away from the house hazily aware of the flock and co. watching the inferno. I half-crawled about 50 yards away then collapsed into unconsciousness.

Max's POV

I still can't believe he killed Ella, he can't have. We'd carried her out the house when Iggy started going crazy and burning the house down. I saw someone jump out of a window and limp away, I expect it was 234, whatever he got; he deserved it and a lot more. Ella had done nothing to him, nothing and he killed her just like she was nothing. Just an insignificant person in the way of his vendetta. Oh god he's probably killed mom by now, and he said he'd killed Jeb, well I'm not that sorry about Jeb, but why Ella? Iggy emerged from the house shaking, one of Pythus' lot ran over to help him but he knocked her away. Why had they chosen to come with us, maybe they were spies for 234, that would make sense.

"What do you know about his plans?" I screamed at the nearest one grabbing her shirt.

"Look I don't know nothing' 'bout 'is plans alright. I'm real sorry for your loss and all but I know nothing." She shouted back at me.

"Max, leave her alone, it's not their fault." Dylan had crept up behind me and placed his hand on my shoulder.

"They do, I know they do! They're in league with him!" I screamed back still holding the girl by the front of her jumper.

"Leave one's sistah alone, we didn't knoh he was going to kill her. We thought he was what-oh before and noh he's gone cuckoohh Don't you know?" Yelled another one.

"Shut up! Shut up all of you, with your stupid accents you're not impressing anybody you know, I've lost my sister and you lot are talking like a load of idiots!" I screeched at them

"Max, just let it go." Dylan told me. "Just let it go." And I broke down, I hardly ever cry but I started like a fire hose and crumpled into his arms

"But he killed my sister." I sobbed.

"I know and we'll get him for it, I promise." He said as I sobbed, my wails echoing the night.

Experiment 234's POV

I woke with a start; I thought there was more fire as I scrambled to my feet. I was back at the school; it made sense since it's the nearest branch of Itex to Arizona. Ter Borcht and Marian Janssen were in the room watching me.

"What happened?" I asked them.

"We extracted you from where you collapsed; the house is now in ruins, we've managed to persuade the public that it was an accident. Unfortunately the flock and your ex-team escaped and you were in a very bad condition when we found you." Dr Janssen told me

"Why?"

"You had suffered major burns, minor burns, several fractures and minor lacerations. It was a wonder you were still in one piece."

"Then have you fixed me?"

"We patched you up as best as we could, you're our best field operative to deal with the flock and the re-evolution must not fail this time." There was something about the way she looked at me; she wasn't looking at me at all she was focussed over my shoulder. All the evidence pointed to one thing.

"Give me a mirror."

"I don't think that is a good idea."

"Show me what I look like! I know you aren't looking at me properly I want to see what I look like."

"Fine, but don't blame what you see on me." She handed me a mirror. All of my exoskeleton had burnt off on the left side of my face leaving the muscle and flesh exposed. I glanced down to check the rest of my body, my left hand was missing two fingers and I realized I couldn't hear out of my left ear. It had burnt away entirely.

"This could lead to some minor complications, but no matter." I told her, I was amazed at my calmness. "Please fetch me a scalpel and an opera mask." I'm an experienced surgeon, I can in theory save a person from multiple gunshots, what I have in mind is not very difficult.

A few minutes later she brought the items I had requested. I shooed her away, I need to be alone to concentrate. A few minutes later I had cut off the right side of the mask and after a few incisions to remove the few chunks of charred skeleton remaining fitted it to my face. It worked rather well I think, it gave me an aura of mystique, a plain white mask on the burnt side of my face, and now I will further my goal of revenge, though I must now add Iggy to my list of people to get revenge on since he scarred me for a long time, I only shed once every three years or so. My efficiency will win in the end, they are crippled by the death of Ella, Max with be too grief-stricken to lead effectively, Iggy will be too rash in his rage against me and with two flock members down, the others are insignificant after all, I have the kill switch for my ex-team. But they were good while they were working with me, so I'll let them live so long as they don't get in my way.

Max's POV

We buried Ella at sunrise, near the smoking remains of my mom's house. I was too choked up to say anything as we threw handfuls of dirt on her, just like at Ari's funeral.

"You didn't deserve to die Ella; I'll find that traitor and I'll kill him for you." Iggy was saying, after last night's breakdown he seemed a lot colder, less sarcastic and funny. When we'd finished burying her and the others had walked off, I just stood by the grave, I felt broken, the biggest link I had to being normal was gone, and I could feel a gap in my heart where Ella had been. I'd only known her for about a year, but I now know what to do.

"Ella, he won't get away with this, I will hunt him down and you will be avenged, I promise. I'll miss you." And with that said I turned away to follow the flock, My sister's grave swallowed up by the darkness of the trees.


	13. Therapy, Lucystyle

**A/N - Sorry it's been so long since I last uploaded a chapter but I've been swamped with work and had to wallow through the marshes of uninspiration. And then someone stole my memory stick so I had to rewrite a few hundred words. So this is the product of several weeks worth of work, I hope it's good, don't forget to review. I'm not going to kill anyone for at least another three chapters, maybe four.**

**Disclaimer - This time Dodger will have the honour of doing this chapter's disclaimer. "I say old fruit, I don't own Maximum Ride or any of it's affiliates and if I did I would probably do a spiffing good job of it too I say and...*gagging sounds*" Sorry I had to choke him to shut him up that was a bad idea.  
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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 13<p>

Max's POV

"Max, do you want to come inside?" Dr Dwyer asked me for the twentieth time, it had about a week since we'd buried Ella and we'd made a group decision to find and warn everyone we'd had contact with, I don't know how that psycho's mind works. But it's a safe bet that he's going to go for our other friends. That and Angel wanted to find Total and Akila, they hadn't been at the house, Angel thought they might have gone to the CSM and I wasn't in a fit state to argue. So here we are. Total and Akila were still MIA and Everyone at CSM was trying to comfort me, fat lot of good that's doing. The one thing that'll comfort me is that murdering traitor's death, and I hope it happens soon. His lot came with us, only Iggy and I complained, they claimed that they knew the traitor the best and would be well placed to help us. If I believed that I'd believe anything. But the decision was out of my hands, Dylan's gone and taken charge, he thinks I'm incapable of making decisions he says I'm too upset to think straight. I'm focused and thinking logically, and logically we should hunt down and kill the traitor who murdered my sister.

Lucy's POV

Max is still out there sulking, I wish she'd stop being so selfish and think about the rest of the group. The kids are trying to entertain themselves, Angel and the Gasman are surprisingly mature and they're about five years younger than the twins who are busy hitting each other, they have no concept of appropriate behaviour. At least the rest of the team are suitably sober. I managed to persuade Andrea and Spectre to try to hack Itex and scan the newsfeeds for anything about Total and Akila. At least we were doing something; the flock was just moping around, not talking, with Iggy sulking in a corner burning some stuff. I don't know much about social situations and that stuff but the group feeling was generally despondent, that normally interprets as bad to me. I can understand why Max and Iggy would be affected by Ella's death so I don't get why the rest of the flock is grieving so much, they weren't as close to her as Max and Iggy were. At least Dylan was being sensible; by sensible I mean not giving a good impression of a lupine-human hybrid with a hangover, you do not want to see that. I suppose since I'm not a competent hacker or stupid I should attempt to comfort someone. I need to do something, I can't stand not doing anything useful it's part of my psychopathy, I'm hyperactive, I can't stay still. It's the dragonfly DNA, probably. I doubt Max would want my company, so I guess the person most likely to accept my condolences without trying to kill me is Iggy. But if he does try to kill me, I won't need to be buried, he'll probably immolate me. Andrea noticed me walking over to Iggy and naturally started humming a dirge, really helpful.

"How're you doing?" I asked him sliding down the wall to sit beside him.

"Aside from having the one girl I liked who isn't family killed and you trying to freaking comfort me, I'm fine!" he spat continuing to incinerate some paper.

"What are you burning?" My curiosity was piqued; I can't stand not knowing something.

"Just some photos and stuff." He muttered, I caught a glimpse of Ella's smiling face in one of the photos before it crumbled to ashes.

"Why are you burning these?" I can be really nosy sometimes

"Enough with the questions already!" He shouted, which was quite painful considering he was sitting right next to me and we've all got super sensitive hearing.

"Look, I know it's tough losing someone you're close to, I should know, I was forced to watch my whole family die one by one and then have Pythus defect. But I carried on; I didn't mope around burning their stuff. You should do the same, I know you miss her but live in the present." I reassured him placing a hand on his arm, gently pulling the papers out of his grip whilst gazing into his icy blue eyes. For the first time in my life I felt like I'd actually bonded with someone, on a macabre subject, but still, there was a connection. I opened my mouth to ask him a question but just my luck, Max had decided to come in without my noticing, was standing behind me and had decided to speak up just then.

"You liked that freaking traitor?" She screamed at me, it was going to take a long time to convince her to let Ella go.

"I used to; you didn't know him before he got that grudge against you. Back then he was always nice and polite, we used to have lunch break together." I told her, acutely aware that I was blushing. Thankfully I was saved from further embarrassment by an exclamation from Spectre.

"I found them; we were idiots not to check before!"

"Where are they?" I asked leaping up to peer over his shoulder.

"They're with Fang's gang." He was right; we were idiots to not check.

"What does it say?" Angel asked appearing beside me.

"It says 'Met Total and Akila in Arizona, they said that Max's mom's house was attacked by a knife-wielding psycho and they barely escaped,' blah blah blah 'Checked out the house, burnt to the ground, no Ella or knife-wielding guys around.' Here's an interesting bit 'If you've had contact with us, for God's sake hide. Itex are back and they're killing people who know us.'"

"Yes that's all well and good, but where are they?" Asked Max, anger forgotten momentarily

"You seriously think Fang would be stupid enough to post details of his whereabouts on his blog? He might be thick but he's not that thick, it'd be like putting up a giant sign saying 'Here I am, please eviscerate me!'" I told her.

"So where is he?" Max practically screeched at me.

"Max, chill, he might not have posted explicit information concerning his location but I can detect where he posted that entry from." Spectre tried calming her down.

"How? The laptop is an untraceable one we got from Itex." Asked Angel politely.

"You forget, I worked for Itex, Andrea and I designed a lot of the computer systems, we left a few backdoors in case something happened. And it helps to know all of Itex's passwords which I bet haven't been changed." Spectre replied typing away trawling through data, after about two minutes which is actually fairly slow compared to his usual data-trawl times. "Found it, it was posted a day ago from about here." He said highlighting a point about 200 miles from where we were already. "Assuming that his gang must travel slower than us to accommodate the non-flying members I estimate if they travelled at a steady pace they should be somewhere in this circle." Circling a region about 150 miles radius he ended by saying "I am the king!" and celebrating by spinning on his chair.

"So that's where we start looking." Said Max already running out the glass doors and taking off, the rest of the flock following her.

"I guess we'd better follow them. Pack up those laptops and we'll U & A."

We soon caught up with the flock; they were busy scanning the ground, looking for traces of Fang's gang. As I flew up to join them Angel veered away and flew alongside me.

"Be careful with Max, I know you want to help but she's got to try and cope on her own." She whispered to me.

"But no one should have to suffer alone." I argued

"Max does for this, can't you tell? Her mind is trying to rationalise her hatred of Pythus for killing her half-sister and her affections for him."

"You mean she's still in love with him? After everything he's done to hurt her."

"Yes."

"No wonder she's been so temperamental." It made sense; I flew on still scanning when I noticed something flickering beneath the canopy of leaves. Something adorned with several shiny things.

"Max, look out!" I screamed as several knives arced out of the canopy headed straight for her. She managed to dodge them as Pythus exploded through the trees. Iggy was already forming a fireball to hurl at him, when he fled, zigzagging down through the leaves again. I won't forget that moment when Pythus saw the fire being formed in Iggy's hands; that look of sheer terror in his eyes. Max and the flock dove down after him whilst the team and I followed at a slower pace; we were trained to be cautious of ambushes. We landed in a small clearing with the flock standing there staring across the clearing at Pythus with his knives at the throat of Total and Akila.

"You seriously thought that it would be that easy to track down Fang's gang and these two mutts?" He sneered "Recognise this?" holding up a slim laptop with the Itex logo stamped on it, with smears of blood adorning it. "I thought long and hard about the next way to break you Max, and I got it, I'm sure you still have a soft spot for your ex so he and his gang met with a little accident a few days ago and none of you thought it suspicious that although Fang met up with Total and Akila about six days ago but never wrote about it until now." He was grinning now, from what I could see of his face from behind the opera mask he was wearing.

"If you've killed Fang I swear I will kill you!" Max snarled.

"Temper, temper, you might give me a fright and my knives might accidentally slip." He teased; he was playing with us now, like a cat and a doomed mouse. "And there'll be no silly little mind tricks Angel, I'm immune to your influence."

"I've had enough of this." Muttered Iggy, summoning a fireball in his hands. Everyone noticed the change in Pythus' demeanour when the fire appeared. He began to shake uncontrollably and sweat profusely.

"Put that out now." Panic was creeping into his voice now, and then I had a revelation, Pythus had pyrophobia. It must have happened when he was trapped in the Martinez's house and that must be why he wears that mask, his face must be scarred.

"Fine, take the dogs, I have no need of them, but I will have my revenge." He stammered "But first I must exact a payment from them for the food and other goods I have supplied them with." And he sliced off Akila's tail and on of Total's ears and fled into the forest without looking back.

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><p><strong>AN - Just FYI Fang isn't dead, but some of his gang might be.**

**Koth.  
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	14. Just when you thought love was simple

**A/N - I have decided to move rapidly from my usual mauling of secondary ch****aracters to a largish romantic sub-plot just to further the characters' gradual descent into insanity or insecurity or something else depending on how sadistic I feel. I think it works quite well, though it would be better with more mauling. Sorry it's a bit short but I couldn't think of a more convinient point to stop. Please review, seriously review, or else I will hunt you down and you won't get any redemption points.**

**Disclaimer - Forget it  
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><p><span>Rogue Mantis Chapter 14<span>

Experiment 234's POV

Why had I gone to pieces like that? I wasn't really aware of what I was doing at the time. I sort of blanked out when I saw Iggy create that… that… never mind, then the rational part of my mind took a backseat and watched everything go wrong. I was going to kill the mutts, ungrateful things, I give them food and one starts bad-mouthing me about the quality of his food and the other bit my ankle. Things keep on going wrong for me; if I weren't logical I would have killed myself by now. As I run and take-off, wings buzzing, I could feel sharp tears of bitterness sting my eyes, great, now I'm crying. I'm a sixteen year old genetic freak with next to no emotions and I'm crying. I hate my life. But nothing can be done about it, all I care about is my revenge, Itex might think I'm working for them but they're all obsessed with genocide and killing all the weaklings. But I'm not stupid, even though Max thinks I am for joining them. Working with Itex gives me the ability to act with impunity; they still have contacts in high places despite their previous, failed attempt at genocide. But I need all the help I can get to beat the flock and team, I may have no quarrel with them but since they take the side of Max and Iggy, much as it pains me, I must eliminate them. Then Itex will fall. How come I have all my plans sorted and a direct course of action, yet I keep failing? I'll have to rethink my strategy before I attack again, though my biggest concern is that Itex will be less than pleased with an ear and a tail. Still, I've got a long flight ahead.

Lucy's POV

No-one noticed me slip off after Pythus, they were all too busy helping Total and Akila, It's better if my absence is ignored. I know it's all my fault, I don't think anyone else saw the look in Pythus' eyes when he saw me standing with Iggy. I studied a few basics of behavioural psychology, but I don't need to have a degree in psychology to know a look of hurt and betrayal when I see one. I'm sure if I just talk to him he might leave us alone, maybe. O.K. it probably won't but it will do some good to get all these pent-up emotions out into the open. God I hate being a teenager, why couldn't Itex bump up the percentage dragonfly I am? Last time I checked, dragonflies don't have these annoying teenage crushes and love triangles. Pythus can't have gotten far, I followed about half a minute after so I should have caught up with him about now unless… Then I felt something crash full-speed into my gut from below, sly devil, he knew I'd follow. I writhed out of his iron grip and span round to face him, he'd lost the look of terror but it was replaced with an expression of hatred, it was not an improvement, especially with that half mask he wore.

"Why did you follow me? And more importantly why did you hook up with that idiot?" He snarled at me launching into a flying kick which I dodged easily.

"I thought that you needed some help, and Iggy is not an idiot." I spat, throwing a few punches which connected soundly with his jaw.

"So you don't deny it!" he retorted, hurling several knives, a few of which grazed me.

"Deny what?" I slammed a kick into his kidney.

"That you hooked up with Iggy!" one of his blades slashed across my face.

"For your information I did not 'hook up' with Iggy, or indeed anyone!" My reply was accompanied by a scissor kick to his jaw.

"Then why were you acting all lovey-dovey with him at the CSM headquarters?" His question unsettled me briefly, which he took advantage of and got me in a strangle hold.

"How do you know that?" I managed to choke out

"A memory link can prove useful at times." He sneered as he yanked back my hair exposing my throat to his knives.

"I wasn't acting lovey-dovey, he needed help and I wanted to help. Anyway why do you care? I thought you liked Max." I was starting to panic now, this wasn't the Pythus I knew before, still as ruthless but his rationality had degraded.

"He needed your help? So all that time we spent together at the School was because you thought I needed help?" He hissed into my ear. "Well listen closely, I don't need help, not yours or anyone else's I will get my revenge without anyone's help." I could tell he was lying; his voice always goes up a third when he lies.

"Kill me then." I challenged him "If you're so obsessed with your vendetta, kill me. You'll probably cause some pain to Iggy that way. Isn't that what you want?"

"No, I won't kill you, yet. It'll be more painful to let you live, I know you can't stand indecision and confusion so I'll create some more for you." And then he kissed me. The first few seconds were terrifying, seriously terrifying. Then the next thing I knew I was kissing him back, I was kissing a murderer whose sole purpose for kissing me was to drive me insane. And it was amazing. It felt like we were hovering there for hours before he broke off the kiss. He smirked at me, and then buzzed off. As I flew back to the CSM I realised he had succeeded in one thing, he had managed to make me confused about everything, and I hate myself for it. All these tangled emotions, I like Iggy, but he liked Ella and I like the person who killed her so how can he like me. And on top of all that, Max is going to kill me when she finds out that I kissed her sister's killer. I hate being human sometimes.

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><p><strong>AN - Sorry the end seems rushed, it's supposed to be like that for some strange nonsensical literary device. Deal with it. And anyone who complains about subtlety, yes, you; will please remember that I don't do subtlety when it comes to relationships.**


	15. The Inverse Nanobot Law

**A/N - Yes I am back, contrary to popular belief I am not dead still alive and kicking. I just had to contend with revision, netbook breaking and having hard drive wiped and having aforementioned netbook confiscated it has taked over three months to finish this chapter. So as compensation for my long absence I have written a longer than usual chapter and the next chapter should be posted soon. Don't forget to review and if the style seems a bit weird, I'm out of practice.**

**Koth.  
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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 15<p>

Lucy's POV

I don't think anyone noticed my absence, they're all too busy fussing over Total and Akila's missing appendages. I could tell it was taking Total a huge amount of self-control not to start swearing a blue streak. Angel was crying and making inaudible threats against Pythus, he's very good at alienating people and making enemies, he'd already made enemies of Max and Iggy. He needs all the friends he can get and currently he has none. We'd flown back to the CSM in double quick time to get the dogs some medical aid, Dr Dwyer was patching up what was left of Akila's tail whilst Angel was bandaging Total's head. Max was pacing around; we all knew what was on her mind and we knew it would end badly, very badly.

"We need to find Fang." Poor predictable Max, it was obvious how Pythus could get to her.

"No." Dylan and I told her in unison.

"Why not?" Max's temper flared up at once.

"Let me think; A: it's too risky, B: it's what Pythus wants you to do and C: it's what he expects you to do."

"But Fang might be dying whilst we're here discussing whether to rescue him or not." She screeched at me, she really needs to learn to be calm and objective. Okay, now I'm the biggest hypocrite in the universe, here I am trying to tell someone to be calm and objective when I am anything but. Arrgh, I could kill Pythus right now for putting me through this indecision.

"I'm going and that's final." Max's tone was so authoritative, she sounded a lot like Pythus; no don't think about him.

"Fine, I'll come with you, someone's got to make sure you don't do something stupid." Dylan replied exasperatedly "Any other takers?"

"I'll go." I told him but was cut off by Max's screech

"There is no freaking way that she or any of them coming with me." Fury tinged her voice, I was a bit hurt by that, so were the others, and we weren't responsible for her sister's death. Well, not directly at least.

"Fine, we won't come." I told her, desperate to defuse the tension in the room. I looked over at Iggy; he was staring at me in that slightly creepy but cute way. "You going?"

"No, I'll stay here."

"WHAT!" Max screamed at him

"You heard me, I'm not going."

"Fine, I can do without you, traitor." In the end only Gazzy and Angel went with Max and Dylan. They took off soon after Spectre told them where they should be able to find Fang's gang.

Max's POV

Iggy was such a traitor, instead of helping me find Fang he'd rather spend time with her. I'll show Iggy; he won't be too pleased to know his girlfriend was kissing 'him' in the woods after 'he' ran away. She thought no-one followed her, but I knew she was up to something. Besides she was kissing 'him'. Hold on a sec', am I feeling jealous? No, of course not, why would I be jealous of her kissing the person who murdered my sister? It's insane, it just is. With my thoughts, Dylan trying to convince me to be rational, and Gazzy singing his entire repertoire of Weird Al Yankovic songs, this was going to be a _long_ flight.

Approximately 1279 miles, 15 hours and 38 repetitions of the constipation song later.

To be honest I was expecting a bit more than the shack we'd been directed to. It had occurred to me several times during the journey that we may have been set up, but we're here now and there's nothing we can do if we get ambushed. After checking for obvious signs of a trap we touched down and braced ourselves to bust into the shack.

"Angel, who's in there?" Dylan asked her whilst keeping an eye on the tree line.

"Three people, Fang and two people I don't know." My heart leapt, He was alive! It took a lot of self-control to not scream with joy, he hadn't been killed by _him. _I practically threw myself through the door with Dylan close behind. It was not a pretty sight; dried blood was spattered over the walls, two teens I didn't know who were pressed against a wall, flinched at the light that spilled in when the door opened and huddled in a corner was Fang clutching a ragged and bloodstained body. At the sight of me his eyes widened with terror and he tried to shrink further away from me.

"No, I'm sorry, it's all my fault." He muttered feverishly not the right time but still sweet of him to take the blame. "It's my fault he killed you." OK, what did he just say? Then I noticed the body, it was me. But how could I be dead? I'm still alive, aren't I?

"You're not dead; it's Maya, your clone." Angel whispered, reading my mind quite literally. I remember her telling me ages ago. Great, Fang thinks I'm the ghost of my clone or something like that. I'm not sure whether I should think it's sweet that he likes her enough to take the blame for her death or be annoyed that it's her and not me.

"One strike, what's your next guess?" I asked him with a slight tinge of sarcasm. He shook his head a bit and edged closer, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Max?" He sounded shocked.

"The one and only." And then he did the last thing I expected; he got up slowly, letting the corpse fall to the floor and threw himself on me hitting me as hard as he could. I'm sure that that's normal when exes meet after a while but what he said next changed it all.

"It's your fault she's dead, he said so. He said it was all your fault" He was yelling into my face before Dylan dragged him off me. _He _must have told Fang that it was my fault she was killed, how that works I don't know, but Fang believes it.

About an hour later.

We finally managed to straighten out what happened; _he _had hunted them down to this shack, fought all six of Fang's gang and won, killing three of them and traumatising the survivors. As impressive as that sounded, _he_ still killed three of Fang's friends and made him think I was responsible. Angel was busy probing Fang's mind to try and fix it, the other two survivors were still huddled together. Angel had managed to find out that they were Kate and Starfish. I'd just stepped outside I needed to get away from all that blood, when something grabbed me by the throat and hissed into my ear.

"If you know what's good for you, you'll get out of here very quickly." My neck was released but when I span around whoever it was had gone. I remembered that voice from somewhere; I just couldn't put my finger on it. Any concerns I had about the identity of my attacker where pushed to the back of my mind, as about twenty robots stomped out of the woods, surrounding the entire area and they were led by one of my least favourite genetic freaks, Omega.

"Hey, long time no attempted murder." I called over to him, he simply smirked.

"I've been waiting a long time for this Maximum Ride. Troops, take no prisoners!" And all the robots pounded forwards.

"Guys we've got trouble, U&A now!" I screamed. Their reaction time was admirable, the robots lunged to try and grab us as we took off. Unfortunately Fang was in no fit state to fly and the other two couldn't fly at all. Major problem, we couldn't just leave them to the tender mercy of our dear friend Omega.

"Dylan, you, Gazzy and Angel help the others, I'll take care of poser boy."

We dived down into the fray, normally no-one can beat us, we're all walking talking fighting machines, those robots were walking, silent _killing_ machines. To put it shortly, bad, very bad. It's funny how it happens, in a one-on-one fight; a circle automatically forms around the fighters. Well that's what happened. He threw some punches at me which I just managed to dodge, I tried waving my hands in his face to confuse him like last time, turns out that doesn't work anymore since he punched me right in the face. I spat out a mouthful of blood. This fight was going to take some time. We were hopelessly outclassed by the 'bots and Omega, I just wasn't fast enough to hit him, whilst he was dancing around me like a freaking ballerina. Half a minute later I was on the floor retching whilst he was standing over me not even winded. As he prepared for a snap kick that would snap my neck my life flashed before my eyes, dog crates, the house, New York, Disneyland, kissing Fang and Antarctica shot past my mind's eye. Omega's leg swung down towards my head, but never made contact. Something had smashed into Omega's side and had stopped him killing me. I staggered upright, expecting to see Dylan. It was _him,_ cutting and slashing at Omega who was backing away. What the hell was _he_ doing here?


	16. Once you've been in Serenity

**A/N - By way of apology for the very long time it took to update the last chapter I have written this one in double quick time. The ending might be a little uncharacteristic but it offsets the beginning nicely. Super bonus points to people who review me and include the number of sci-fi references and where they come from. So please (ad infinitum) review and I won't be forced to kill you so soon. Amazing bonus points to anyone who works out the exact answer, to 3 significant figures, to the maths question.  
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**Disclaimer - I forgot to do this last time, I don't own Maximum ride or any of its affilliates. Any opinions expressed in this work of fanfiction are not necessarily the opinions of James Patterson, his publisher, the people who proof-read his stuff, his secretary if he has one, his bodyguard, his PA, his army of flying monkeys or me. **

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><p>Rogue Mantis Chapter 16<p>

Experiment 234's POV

"You call 'this' a success?" Marian was screaming in my face again, to be honest it's happened so often it's lost all the intimidation it used to have. On the other hand what else could she do? I'd returned from Arizona with A dog's tail and another one's ear, not a very tangible success.

"On the contrary, this has turned out almost exactly as I predicted."

"You predicted you would cut off the ear and tail of a couple of worthless mutts and flee in terror!"

"Perhaps not that part." I conceded "But overall, the mission was a success."

"How?" Ter Borcht asked scathingly, he still hated me, what a surprise.

"Simple, I have made it quite clear that I have attacked Fang's gang and therefore Maximum will be compelled to track him; or his corpse, I forget how I left him, down due to their past relationship and her on going affection for him. And knowing Maximum she'll take as fewer flock members as she can, she'll exclude my ex-team members 'cause she doesn't trust them, she'll definitely take Dylan, she's been switching between him and Fang for ages, she'll take Angel and one of the other flock members, but not Iggy." It all came so easily to me, I hadn't actually had a plan, I was just making it up on the fly, but it sounded plausible.

"Why not?" Marian seemed genuinely interested this time.

"Because he will want to spend some time socialising with Experiment 259 and since Maximum will be unwilling to allow members of my ex-team along he will in all likelihood refuse to take part in Maximum's venture."

"And why would he want to spend time 'socialising' with Experiment 259?"

"Their reasoning is not important. Just give me a battalion of Nano-soldiers and I'll trace Maximum Ride and eliminate her and the flock she has with her whilst another battalion under the command of Omega assaults the remaining Flock members and the other Experiments."

"That could work, Ter Borcht, organise two patrols and alert Omega and Alpha." Hold on, did she just say Alpha

"Why Alpha, Can't Omega handle it by himself?" Ter Borcht was smirking at me as he waddled off, that alone was a big danger sign.

"Now Experiment 234 you didn't seriously think we'd let you back out into the field after the failures of your last several missions did you? You have served your purpose and now your employment is to be terminated." I knew this was coming, I'd prepared for it, I just hadn't expected it so soon.

"And what exactly was my purpose?"

"To lure out Maximum Ride allowing us to eliminate her so no-one would stand in the way of the re-evolution plan."

"So you were essentially manipulating me for your own ends whilst I was seeking revenge?"

"Yes"

"Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal. Although you colud've been a teensy bit less obvious." Excellent, now she looked confused.

"What do you mean 'a bit less obvious'?"

"You seriously thought that I wouldn't notice you trying to manipulate me to help you achieve your genocide? I'm very disappointed, and there was me thinking you had some brains. I couldn't care less whether you halved the world's population but I do care that you tried to get me to help. And please stop thinking, it's annoying; or better yet stop existing."

"Guar…!" Her cry for help was cut off rather abruptly, rather like her head. Maybe I'll keep it as a memento, or a basketball, whichever's funnier. Now time to deal with my dear friend Ter Borcht, save Max, save the other lot and act like a hero. Life was looking good.

Fifteen minutes and seven decapitated, disembowelled, gibbed and eviscerated guards later.

I must admit, I HATE using guns. But I'm not stupid enough to take on a bunch of heavily armed shock-troopers with about 200 knives. Nope, I've got exactly 351 knives, and an RPG. Shock-troopers tend not to be too much of a problem when their head suddenly parts company with their body, and most other bits of them. So it didn't take long to reach the hangar, well when I say hangar I mean a helicopter pad cleverly disguised as the top floor of a skyscraper. Turns out though that Ter Borcht can be quite fast when it comes to mobilising troops to eliminate his least favourite bunch of genetic freaks. One 'copter was already in the air whilst the other was just starting up. And standing right next to the one about to take off was my nemesis. No not Max, Ter Borcht, revenge is a dish best served with a very wide variety of knives. I summoned all my rage and hatred of the freaking whitecoat who had tortured me and my team for fun as I flew across the hangar. When Ter Borcht saw me buzzing towards him he let out an amusingly girlish shriek and tried to waddle away. Little maths question, if a fat bastard is waddling at 1mps and accelerating at a rate of 0.1mps2 and a human-mantis hybrid is 79m behind him and flying at 250mps and accelerating at a rate of 50mps2 how long does it take for the genetic freak to catch the fat bastard? The answer is somewhere in the region of 5 milliseconds.

"Vhy Vould you do this? You could've been part of something much bigger." He pleaded as I drew my favourite knife, spinning her round in my hand, I've been waiting for this for a long time, and my revenge will finally be complete. Yes, I did refer to my favourite knife as a female, I call her Vera. I hope the last thing he heard was my answer to his question.

"I aim to misbehave."

About 36 hours later

Lucy's POV

Max and her lot had been gone for about an hour; the CSM had gone back to their respective homes, but we hung around, having nowhere else to go. Nudge was trying to teach Rose and Andrea about fashion whilst Dodger and Spectre were watching who-knows-what on YouTube.

"Want to go flying?" I heard Iggy call from just outside.

"Sure." It'd be great to get out in the air again; I love it at twilight, when the stars are just coming out. I walked out onto the decking where he was slouched against the wooden railings. When I carefully opened my wings, they can be ridiculously delicate; I felt his feather light fingers brush them slightly.

"Your wings feel weird, good weird. They're a sort of clear but they've got these strange colours that keep changing." He murmured, his fingers dancing lightly along the edge, how poetic of him. I vaulted over the rails and shot upwards, the wind whistling through my rather short hair. I heard him following much slower; I hovered about 100 feet above the building to wait for him. As soon as he caught up I darted away again. We continued our little cat and mouse game for a while, he eventually caught me by dropping on my back whilst I wasn't looking and we tumbled onto the roof laughing. I sat up and looked out over the landscape whilst Iggy stood up and shook out his wings.

"Stay here for a sec." He told me quietly as he leapt off the roof and soared off. I gazed out into the inky black sky, dotted with pinpricks of light waiting for him to come back. It was about five minutes before he fluttered back onto the roof.

"Watch this." Iggy snapped his fingers and a huge tongue of flame exploded into the night air sparking green and silver, then a rocket whistled into the air exploding in a shower of red and yellow sparks. I span round to face him; he was smiling in that faintly creepy but cute way. I could tell this was the happiest he'd been in days, even though he couldn't see the amazing display of pyrotechnics. He bent down ever so slightly as I raised myself up on tiptoes to look deep into his light blue eyes before I closed my own mismatched ones. Feeling his lips touch mine was like being tasered, only less painful, I really am so poetic sometimes. It was like all my worries and insecurity was just washed away by the sparks cascading around us.

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><p><strong>AN - Yup, I didn't interrupt the whole kiss scene with the sudden but inevitable death of either one of the mutants. I'm just slightly irked that it's Valentine's day, I'm single and there's all this freaking valentines day consumerist goods being sold and I'm not really a part of it. So in a true break of character I wanted at least someone I know(?) to be happy. Before I kill them off.  
><strong>

**Koth.**


	17. You Just Learn To Live There

**A/N – We're nearing the end of the long and winding road. This is the first part of 'The End' story arc, tying up all loose ends and cleaning up all the fluff. Just as a warning, there will be a very emotional major character death at the end of the story, not like Ella's death which, whilst rage-inducing, didn't have the effect I was aiming for. I need ideas for a new fanfiction soon; I might even start a sequel to this. So feel free to make any suggestions in your reviews.**

**Disclaimer – It's not mine, please try to remember that.**

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><p><span>Rogue Mantis Chapter 17<span>

Max's POV

The fight was winding down a bit; everyone was too focused on Omega and _his _fight. They were moving so fast even I could barely see the blows. All I could see was a lot of blood and when I say a lot of blood, I mean a lot of blood. It was like watching a tornado, a tornado covered in very sharp knives. In a record time of 1 minute 37 seconds, Omega staggered away, clearly outmatched and bleeding from at least a hundred cuts.

"Strike me down and the Director and all of Itex will come after you." Omega's voice was raspy and blood bubbled out of his mouth as he spat the words at _him_.

"But you don't know? Itex is finished; Janssen and Ter Borcht are dead. I ended them, like I shall end you." _He _moved with unbelievable speed suddenly appearing in front of Omega who had half a blood-stained knife sticking out of his back.

"You forgot, if you mess with Max, you mess with me." _He _roughly pulled out the knife; letting Omega's corpse crumpled to the floor, blood oozing out of the gaping stomach wound. God, I hate blood. If 'bots could look confused, these ones sure did. Evidently losing wasn't in their databanks. I got the feeling they'd be there for a while. _He_'d stopped wearing the mask though I can't say it was an improvement; the left side of _his_ face looked all melted, skin drooping and everything. Eww. Oh God, now _he_ was LICKING the blood off _his_ knives; what was _he_, some kind of vampire?

"I wish you'd stop referring to me as '_him'_ it's rather rude." _He_ called over, not bothering to look. Great, does he have telepathy now?

"No, I remember everything you do, remember." _He_ still didn't turn around and there he was, lecturing me about manners when _he_ wouldn't even face me.

"You're still doing it; I have a name you know." Arrgh, he's so arrogant! "Besides, I brought you a present, sorry I didn't wrap it." It was Janssen's head, really romantic. So I expressed my gratitude in the only way I know, by throwing it at his oversized head. It bounced off and rolled on the floor for a bit.

"Why the hell would you give me a freaking head? What are you even doing here?"

"Touchy now aren't we? You should be grateful; I just saved your life."

"Only to save your greasy hide!"

"I didn't have to come; it was a tough decision, deciding who to save first. You or Lucy. The agony it put me through. Anyway, I know you're going to help me save her."

"Why should I care what happens to you or your ex?"

"You should care because as we speak a highly trained squadron of nanobots led by a fanatic from Oklahoma are zeroing in on the CSM headquarters; which, by some sad misfortune, happens to be the location of two flock members." Great, he's got me. I can't let them kill Nudge or Iggy. I am _so_ going to kill him for this, but not yet at least.

"Just stay away from me on the way back 'kay?"

Lucy's POV

Last night was amazing, we talked until about five and then watched the sunrise, well, I did at least. I hate myself for it. I know I'll break his heart again and I hate seeing people in pain. I have to tell him, I have to tell them all. But then I'll cause him more pain, either way it always leads to more pain. I could break up with him, but that will still hurt him. There's no way out, why did I have to try and help him. I knew I'd fall for him but… I couldn't bear the look his face as he was burning those photos. I hate myself. I can't live with myself, good thing I won't be for much longer.

Max's POV

"Why did you think that giving me a severed head would make up for you killing my sister?" So I hadn't managed to stay away from him on the flight back, so what? Besides I needed answers and the sooner I got them the sooner I could get him out of my sight.

It took some persuading but we managed to get Fang to follow us. He still wouldn't drop Maya's corpse and he was talking to it now. Dylan was carrying Kate whilst Angel and Gazzy carried Holden between them leaving me free to interrogate Pythus.

"I thought it would make a nice present. If you think about it, there are so many uses for it. You could play soccer, basketball or football with it; it makes a nice ornament and can be used as a desk tidy if you removed the flesh and decomposable bits."

"You're insane aren't you?"

"Not insane, high functioning psychopath." 'Cause there's _so _much difference.

"I remembered that!" He is insufferable, but that's why I like him. No, I don't like him, he killed my sister.

"I know you like me, I know you know, why not just give up the façade?" Is none of my head private anymore?

"I hate you; you know that, everyone here knows it too. You killed my sister!" Rage was boiling up; if he wasn't careful he'd end up with more than his pathetic little ego shattered.

"You do realise that if I were a simple eraser, you would've snapped my neck the moment you saw me. Doesn't that indicate some fondness?"

"You have a _very _high opinion of yourself don't you?"

"We have one of those over-complicated love-hate relationships; you hate me because I killed your sister, mother and father but you love me because I saved your life multiple times and gave you a head as a present."

"What!"

"Okay, maybe not the head part."

"You killed my mom too?"

"That's what I said."

"I _hate _you and I will tear your freaking heart out once this is over."

"Right, that's a good start, now we can get all of these pent-up emotions out in the open, like one of those pointless bonding exercises." Yup, he's insane, 100% wacko, but he's got a point.

"For once in your life you've had a good idea."

"Really?"

"Yep!" And I punched him in the face. I know you're told not to punch a man in the face with a closed fist but it is on occasion hilarious; especially when that man is at least 50 pounds lighter than me. This whole 'feelings out in the open thing might be a good idea after all.

Lucy's POV

It's no good me feeling sorry for myself, I've got things to do, and apologies to make. Iggy was cooking breakfast for everyone, Andrea was scanning the newsfeeds, Nudge was chattering away at Dodger and Spectre was hitting on Rose, just a normal day. Well, for now, my life these days has been anything but normal. First there was the whole run away from Itex, then the defections, then Iggy and then, well… that part doesn't matter, not anymore.

"You want bacon?" Iggy asked without looking at me, calmly flipping an omelette.

"I told you last night, I'm vegetarian, I'll have some of that omelette though." I can't believe he forgot already.

"I was just teasing, here's your breakfast, bon appetit." He smirked sliding a plate down the table with his usual unnerving accuracy. It was a plate of bacon arranged in a little heart shape, cute.

"Ha ha, very funny can I have my real food now?" I appreciated the gesture and all, but he could get a bit tiresome sometimes. Still smirking he took the offending meal back and passed me the fresh cooked omelette hopping up on the counter to eat the bacon. It wasn't a bad omelette either, cheese and mushroom, of course it didn't fill the huge hole inside me.

"Iggy, I've got something I need to tell you." I had to tell him, I had to; it'll cause the least suffering for all of us.

"Sure, what is it?"

"I can't tell you here, outside." I stood up and walked over to the sliding door, Iggy following looking rather bemused whilst the others started whispering and giggling a bit. Once we were outside, standing on the slightly charred decking, I turned to face him. He had me fixed with one of his unnerving but cute stares, he looked so trusting, so open. I can't do this to him, I really can't.

"Iggy, please don't be upset by this."

"By what? Don't tell me it's that scumbag again."

"No, it's nothing to do with Pythus. It's just… I don't know how to say this."

"What is it? You know you can tell me." He was starting to look concerned, he lightly touched my shoulder, the weight and solidarity of it was strangely comforting.

"I…"

"Touchin' this is an' all I'm 'fraid I'm goin' ta' have ta' stop you right there." A voice in a southern drawl interrupted me from behind. I span around coming face to face with girl, perhaps a little older than I was with platinum blonde hair and a weird looking jumpsuit. What really drew my attention was the small army gathering behind her. How could we have not noticed them sneaking up on us?

"Now I'm 'fraid y'all have gone an' got yourselves a nice an' shiny death sentence; an' I've bin ordered to carry that out. An' I think y'all will find I'm not incompetent like the rest of the losers sent after you lot." Iggy managed to sum that all up in one single elegant word.

"Crap." Masterfully put.

Max's POV

We were too late, typical. The house was ablaze, flames dancing from the roof, luckily I could see several winged shapes flitting around the inferno swinging a variety of improvised weapons at those annoying nanobot things.

"We've got to help them!" I shouted at Pythus who'd stopped dead and was just hovering there, freaking useless he was.

"I am not going anywhere near that house." His voice was barely audible over the roar of the flames.

"What?"

"I said I am not going anywhere near that freaking house!" He was practically screaming now, quick as a flash he wheeled around and shot down towards the forest. I turned to Dylan who was hovering nearby.

"You go after him, we can handle the others." With his approval I dived down towards the forest, when I found that no good deserter he'd wish he'd gone into that house.

It took nearly ten minutes before I found him, coiled up on a fallen tree, sobbing. Yes, I am not joking, the lean mean killing machine was crying. He heard me land and leapt up shaking a little, frantically wiping away tears.

"Why the hell did you bail on us back there?" I screamed into his face.

"You wouldn't understand, none of you would." His voice was barely a whisper.

"Try me. What made you think that you could just leave us there?"

"Sit down and I'll tell you." He seemed to have gained some semblance of sanity so I sat down warily, watching him as he curled up on the log.

"Practically everything I told you about my life has been a lie. People always hated me. When I was a kid I was always the smart one, the weedy kid who couldn't put up a fight. They always picked on me, it wasn't easy. I grew up in a particularly rough neighbourhood, to say the kids there were mean would be an understatement. They were vicious brats always hitting me, robbing me, I remember one time they threw me out of a third floor window. It was a miracle I survived.

"But you said that Itex made you." This was getting way creepy.

"A necessary deception to hide my past, I volunteered to become one of Itex's test subjects when I was nine. I wanted to get my tormentors back for what they did to me. I say that people hated me, the thing is; I hated them back even more than they did. I despised the human race; they were destroying the planet I felt I had to do something. Itex seemed to be the best choice, they claimed they were going to save the world and eradicate half the humans. The one condition I gave them when I was going to be 'tested' was that they graft another animal into me. I no longer identified with humans; I was going to be better than them. I was Itex's most successful hybrid, a nine year old who'd been grafted with praying mantis DNA and showed no ill effects. My training took less than a year to complete; they said I was a fast learner, too fast. I learnt every detail of their plan within weeks. I was horrified, so I ran away. I ran back home, some of the old bullies still lived there, they recognised me. Next thing I knew they were lying on the ground, their blood pooling around my feet. They were only twelve, I felt sick. I was a cold heartless killer, so I went back to Itex that was where all the other killers went, all the other monsters. They punished me for running away; they found my parents and baby sister. They burnt them. They burnt them to ashes. I think something inside of me burnt with them. The world was a cruel place and if I didn't adapt to be part of it, I wouldn't survive. I became cold and calculating, I lost all emotions; they were unnecessary and got in the way of my job. In short, I became the apex predator. I became Itex's top assassin, they gave me a team of operatives and told us to find and kill you. That's when things went wrong."

"How did it all go wrong?" Fascinating as this might be I was conscious of the screams of pain coming from the house.

"I was the apex predator and I failed, Itex tossed me aside like so many others in their quest for power. I thought that I could trust no-one; not even my team, not even Lucy.

"What's this got to do with me?"

"You restored my faith in human nature."

"And what if I don't believe you?"

"Look at me and then you'll know." He was right, when I looked into his eyes I couldn't see any of the coldness or arrogance that usually glittered within them. All I could see was a tortured soul, tempered by fear and doubt and lost in a world where kill or be killed was taken all too literally.

Pythus' POV

"I thought it was time to drop the façade." I whispered staring into Max's eyes without blinking. All sound seemed to fade into the distance as I leaned in, her eyes were closed and her lips were parted slightly. The first contact was like two moths colliding, a feather touch. Max's wings unfurled and wrapped around us, shutting us off, creating an eternal moment caught in the eye of a storm.

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><p><strong>AN – All the emotions come flooding out, this will be a great ending, I can tell. Just FYI there won't be blood, not at the end, too emotional. There might be bacon though.**

**Koth.**


	18. Death and Income Tax

**A/N - The end is nigh, but for whom?**

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><p><span>Rogue Mantis Chapter 18<span>

Lucy's POV

I hate being shot at, it happens just a little too often for my liking. We'd all managed to get out of the house before Iggy started with his pyrokinesis. What Iggy lacks in finesse he makes up for in blanket ruination, I hope the house wasn't too expensive. So we were all hovering around in mid-air getting shot at and the fire didn't seem to be hurting any of the 'bots and Alpha had skipped out.

"Why. Won't. They. Burn?" Iggy spat, throwing fireball after fireball down on the 'bots.

"You people are freaking useless aren't you? They're tungsten coated, didn't you notice?" Andrea sneered

"Of course not, we were all running away from bullets and the impending fire!" He hissed back, melting several bullets with a tongue of flame.

"If you can't deal with the problem then I will." Rolling up the sleeves of her brown trench coat she drew a long-barrelled revolver I'd never seen before.

"Since when did you have a gun?" Pythus abhorred guns and forbade their use on principle, saying we weren't graceless thugs.

"Since Pythus abandoned us and you started going all moony-eyed over him. The team needed a leader and I was next in the chain of command."

"But we were forbidden to use guns; they're cruel, unrefined death-dealers."

"How dare you call him 'unrefined'? He's a work of art; he's a Moses Brothers Self-defence Engine Frontier Model B, five chambers, uses 38. Special, 6 inch barrel, weighs about 1.45 pounds, semi-automatic and has a spring loaded sight. I call him 'Mal'."

"I've never even heard of a gun like that." Iggy looked slightly nonplussed by Andrea's effortless recitation of the thing's specs.

"'Course you haven't, he's unique."

"If he's so great why don't you take out those 'bots?"

"Not got a long enough range; Dodger, could you please pass me Jayne."

"They're in on this as well?"

"You did figuratively abandon us, we needed to do something to survive, and that included 'acquiring' a few weapons." She told me catching a gun from Dodger.

"He's a folding Callahan full-bore auto-lock, customised trigger, double cartridge in gauge and fires very big bullets. Perfect."

"Jayne's a girl's name." Nudge commented

"Shut up." Andrea snapped back

"Are you going to lecture us about your firearms collection or get on with the freaking shooting?" Iggy yelled at her dodging another volley of bullets.

"Just a second." She calmly glanced at the 'bots on the ground; raised the gun and shot all five of them, cool as a cucumber. "No power in the 'verse can stop me." She smirked at a scowling Iggy and started brushing ash off her coat like nothing had happened. Iggy then cocked his head slightly and got that worried look on his face.

"What about a heavily armed helicopter?" He asked carefully. We all span round in mid-air to look where he'd been listening. A large 'copter bristling with all kinds of nasty weaponry was flying straight at us. Alpha was at the controls, grinning like a maniac as she shot seven missiles at us. One for each of us, great.

"Scatter!" I screamed as the missiles flew towards us. I banked up sharply before rocketing away, I looked back to see how the others were; only to see one of the missiles tailing me. They were freaking heat-seeking missiles, talk about unsporting.

"IGGY! Help!" I'm fast, but not as fast as a heat-seeking missile. Turns out I didn't need any help. It's not all that smart to use heat-seeking missiles near a burning house. So that's when the machine gun fire started, why can't these people just leave us alone? We've done nothing to them recently. As the bullets whined past me as I shot straight up, I heard the unmistakable sound of someone being shot.

It was Iggy.

"Noooo!" I screamed hurling myself after him as he plummeted down to the forest beneath us. He disappeared through the canopy and hit the ground with a very audible, sickening thud. I couldn't leave the others to deal with Alpha on their own. But I couldn't leave Iggy, he might die; Andrea is more than capable of handling the situation. Iggy was lying tangled in a pile of leaves and snapped branches; one of his legs was broken, the bone jutting out from under the skin whilst he bled from a stomach wound. Despite all this, by some miracle he was still conscious and turned to look at me.

"I knew you'd come." He whispered blood trickling out of the side of his mouth.

"Iggy, don't die, please don't die."

"I'm not dying, I feel like I've been used as an eraser's punching bag and my leg hurts like hell but I'm fine." He wasn't fine, I knew, stomach wounds are very very serious. I scrabbled around for something to staunch the bleeding.

"Help!" I screamed to the empty forest, though I don't know what good it would've done since it was very unlikely a trained medical professional happened to be wandering around in the woods.

Pythus' POV

Blissful oblivion, knowing someone likes me for who I really am and not one of my facades. Well, all good things must come to an end; the kiss lasted exactly 87 seconds and was broken by a scream.

"Help!" It was Lucy, 74 yards north by northeast. judging by the tone of her voice, she's not the one who requires the help, she sounds much more worried when it's someone else, but she sounds unnaturally scared. Ah, of course, Iggy's gotten himself badly injured and Luce can't help him. Can't say I'm that surprised to be honest.

"Shouldn't we go and help?" Max sounded tense and a bit frustrated, maybe by the interruption or my lack of response, probably the latter.

"We should." To a recombinant 74 yards is nothing, less than 10 seconds later we reached where Iggy and Luce were and I tripped over a tree root; real smooth. Iggy was bleeding very heavily from the stomach; from the entry wound I'd say a high calibre machine gun bullet. If he got a decent surgeon he'd probably have a 37% chance of survival. Good thing for him I'm a brilliant surgeon.

"Pythus, what are you doing here?" Lucy was confused, it's perfectly natural though useless and quite frankly, annoying.

"Saving your boyfriend's life, or would you rather I let him bleed out?" I would've thought it was pretty obvious seeing as I'd already got out my favourite scalpels and a bottle of valium.

"Why are you using that stuff on him?" Queried Max with a look of distaste on her face.

"Two reasons, number one, he's in a tremendous amount of pain no matter what he says and number two, it's barking hilarious to hear what they say. I reckon about 20 ml should do the trick." Max looked rather confused, hurt even. I don't understand why, I was treating a patient. The valium worked like a charm, the grimace of pain that contorted Iggy's face lessened and he started humming faintly, it sounded like 'Ciao baby' or something like that.

"You know that gun Andrea's using isn't what she said it is?" Dreamy voice, characteristic of people high on valium, been there done that. Hold on, did he say Andrea was using a gun? I told them never to use guns; the wounds are freaking hard to treat.

"What was it?" I asked trying not to let my anger show.

"It sounded like an Izhmash Saiga-12, no such gun as a Callahan full-bore auto-lock." He giggled a bit; I have no idea why I'm saving this guy's life. He trailed off into a string of random comments whilst the sound of gunfire becomes increasingly insistent. The valium isn't having the amusing effect I was hoping for though, it's rather disappointing.

"Hey Luce, you remember up on the roof last night?"

"How could I forget?" Slight blush due to question; possibly due to embarrassment about subject with present company, may indicate moment of non-physical intimacy. An interesting though not entirely unanticipated turn of events.

"Did you really like the fireworks?"

"Of course I did." This was getting needlessly boring; I need information, not silly questions about whether they like a variety of pyrotechnics. So I decided to speak up.

"Whilst I was anticipating some fairly amusing banter this conversation is getting very dull very fast so if you would kindly shut up and let me get on with extracting these bullet shards." That shut them up.

"Why did you train as a medic? You said you didn't like whiny sick people." Lucy asked about five minutes later.

"I don't. That's why I specialise in surgery; I like to see how people fit together, so I know better ways to dismantle them. That and it's fun to stab people for a reason other than to kill them, it makes a nice change." Max's expression was somewhere between horror, betrayed and disgusted; not a particularly attractive face.

"You said you had something to tell me." Iggy spoke up, wincing as I extracted the seventh fragment from his stomach.

"I don't think I should tell you right now."

"Just tell me." His voice suddenly becoming harsh despite the effects of the valium. This is having a profound effect on Lucy; Max can tell too, she's sat up straighter. This is proving to be a good use of valium.

Looking down, tears sparkling in her eyes; she whispered.

"I'm dying."


End file.
